From time to time, the question of whether or not American style democracy is really working comes up in political discourse. Many Americans maintain that we should have a two party system and that it really works because we can actually get things done. Defenders of the two party system will often compare our system to Europe and tell us, "Look at Europe. They have so many political parties, they can't get anything done."
So let's put that to the test with one example. In Japan and Europe, we find that they are far more efficient with their transportation system. Japan and Europe both enjoy very advanced, very efficient public transportation systems. Japan is famous for its high speed rail system, the Bullet Train. The Bullet Train has moved far beyond what I knew it to be as an adolescent both in terms of speed and technology. Both Japan and Europe have had excellent public rail systems for decades.
My mom has been to Europe many times over the last few decades and tells me first hand that the rail system in Europe is convenient, easy to use, and picks you up and drops you off where you need to be. She says it's great to be able to get on a train at the airport and take it to a stop that is within walking distance or a short cab ride to where she wants to go in Germany.
Both Japan and Europe have coalition governments. You know, the kind of government that never gets anything done because there are too many parties? Yeah, that style of government.
The rail systems in Europe and Japan were built with the consent of coalition governments, multiple parties, each vying for their voice to be heard, and they were heard. All of them. In contrast, the United States is plagued by a two-party system in gridlock. This system is backed by enormous sums of money and safe seats in Congress. The gridlock is exacerbated by the infamous Tea Party and other ultraconservatives who don't seem to want government to work. At least not while Obama is in office.
The coalition government has us beat beyond transportation, too. Europe and Japan both have universal health care with a single payer system, despite a coalition government. Europe has a thriving space program that is continually making new discoveries. Europe has the Large Hadron Collider, the largest particle accelerator in the world and Europe beat us to the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Europe has a much higher rate of union membership than we do. Japan and Europe both have excellent worker benefits instituted by law, that treat workers more like humans. All of this was achieved with a coalition government.
Our political system is locked in duocracy, a two party system, claimed to be far more efficient than other political systems. But upon casual inspection of the facts, comparing the differences between the two styles of governments, such a claim cannot be supported. Besides, in a true democracy, two parties would not rule the country to the exclusion of all other parties. A choice of two is not really a choice.
The duocracy enjoyed by the Democrats and Republicans excludes many other political parties who cannot get free air time on any local stations in the US. Third parties have been effectively blacked out of national news reporting. Meanwhile, the duocracy gets free air time any time they want it, from the four major networks, Fox, ABC, CBS and NBC.
If we really want to get things done in this country, we need to break the duocracy, a monopoly on political power. In any country, no two political parties should have a monopoly on power and still be called a democracy. Remove that monopoly and you'll find politicians more accustomed to compromise for all rather than exclusion for the benefit of a mere few.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
A note on the causes of obesity
I just read this fascinating blog post about what appears to be the onset of a world-wide obesity pandemic. I think that David Berreby is spot on in his blog post. There is no single, super simple answer to the problem of worldwide obesity.
This trend has been going on for decades. I can attest to this from personal experience. Years ago, I rented "Herbie the Love Bug", you know, with that adorable Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of his own? The movie? Great for the kids. The extras on the DVD? Mind blowing. One of the extras was a documentary on the making of the movie and that documentary included a very interesting segment.
The making of the The Love Bug movie included a segment with a contest for the best decorated VW Bug. The winner would receive a life-sized replica of car #53, Herbie. The documentary was made in 1969 and what was most striking is that the crowds of people shown competing for the prize were all thin. There were only a couple of people who were overweight that I could see and I felt a sadness at having watched my country become overweight over the years.
One factor that is often overlooked when determining the cause of obesity? Capitalism. Capitalism encourages us to eat more and to live in a soup of industrial chemicals that alter our response to hunger and to food. Capitalism also encourages us to sleep in rooms with little blinking lights throughout the night.
Berreby's blog post also notes that this obesity trend is not just with humans. The weights of eight species of lab animals were tracked over decades and all of them consistently gained weight over the last few decades.
While personal responsibility certainly plays a significant role in obesity, world-wide, everywhere we happen to be, there are many other forces at work contributing to our girth. These forces are not easily discerned and once political discussions begin, at least a few people are going to be thinking about how to protect their bottom line before they take an interest in solving the problem.
Hopefully, we can all work peacefully together to solve it.
This trend has been going on for decades. I can attest to this from personal experience. Years ago, I rented "Herbie the Love Bug", you know, with that adorable Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of his own? The movie? Great for the kids. The extras on the DVD? Mind blowing. One of the extras was a documentary on the making of the movie and that documentary included a very interesting segment.
The making of the The Love Bug movie included a segment with a contest for the best decorated VW Bug. The winner would receive a life-sized replica of car #53, Herbie. The documentary was made in 1969 and what was most striking is that the crowds of people shown competing for the prize were all thin. There were only a couple of people who were overweight that I could see and I felt a sadness at having watched my country become overweight over the years.
One factor that is often overlooked when determining the cause of obesity? Capitalism. Capitalism encourages us to eat more and to live in a soup of industrial chemicals that alter our response to hunger and to food. Capitalism also encourages us to sleep in rooms with little blinking lights throughout the night.
Berreby's blog post also notes that this obesity trend is not just with humans. The weights of eight species of lab animals were tracked over decades and all of them consistently gained weight over the last few decades.
While personal responsibility certainly plays a significant role in obesity, world-wide, everywhere we happen to be, there are many other forces at work contributing to our girth. These forces are not easily discerned and once political discussions begin, at least a few people are going to be thinking about how to protect their bottom line before they take an interest in solving the problem.
Hopefully, we can all work peacefully together to solve it.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Review: Nexus 4
I'm an Android fan. I bought the first Android phone, the G1 with a slide-out keyboard, when it came out years ago. Then when upgrade time came, I bought an HTC One and that was miles ahead of the G1. A few weeks ago, I purchased an unlocked Nexus 4 from Google Play. I've been playing with it now for more than a week and compared to my old HTC One phone, this new phone is a blast.
The Nexus 4 is quick and nimble on its feet. It responds quickly to gesture commands and loads programs just as quickly. It's a miser when it comes to battery use and it has some new apps I did not expect to find on the phone.
When I got the phone, I tried to transfer the SIM card from the old phone to the new one, but the old SIM card was much too big. I trudged on down to the local T-Mobile shop and got a new SIM. With the new SIM in place, I was ready to roll.
I ran through the setup on the phone and logged into my Gmail account. Soon enough, my email and my contacts were loading. I headed home from the T-Mobile shop and when I got home, I found that an update was waiting and ready to run. This update would upgrade my phone to Android 4.3, Jelly Bean.
The update was quick and clean. On reboot, I had a slightly newer operating system, so there didn't appear to be much more to see. The boot times were much better than my old phone, too. On the old phone, I waited about 3-4 minutes for everything to load. On the new phone, I was up and running in much less than a minute. This was a very welcome change.
I enjoy playing a little game called Bejeweled Blitz. On the old phone, this took quite some time to load and often, it would hang while loading. On the new phone, it loads quick and is ready to run in a couple of seconds.
The larger screen provides ample real estate to work with. Icons on the home and other screens are easy to customize and locate as I want them to be. There is a bottom row of icons that appear on every screen so that I can get easy access to the programs I want from any screen.
There is the usual assortment of wallpapers, where you can use pictures, animations and the like. The new themes are very pretty, too.
The most significant new feature on the Nexus 4 is Google Now. Google Now is an intelligent personal assistant that uses your searches and email data to find information that is timely and relevant to your day. Just tap the Google search bar at the top of the home screen and Google Now appears. Google Now organizes items as a series of cards that appear on the screen. There's a card for the weather, a card for your appointments, news and other events around town.
With Google Now, I get the weather, my stock quotes to see where I'm at, and a few other things I didn't expect. For example, I ordered an item from Amazon and received a confirmation email. When I opened Google Now, I get the status on the latest package and within that card, I get a link to track the package. This is something that I wasn't expecting at all, but found it to be a very useful feature. When I was done with the card, i could just swipe it to the right to remove it.
My mom came out to visit us last weekend. A couple weeks prior to visiting us, she sent us her itinerary by email. On the day of the flight, Google Now used the information in that email to create a new card that provided me with the flight status, departure and landing times, gate and terminal number and a link to the original source email. This card made it easy for me to track the status of the flight without having to go to a website to look it up. When I was done with the card, I could just swipe it to the right to discard it. On the day that my mom was departing, a new card appeared for the flight home.
There are some minor and major advances with the Nexus 4 over my old phone. The biggest advance to me is the software update schedule. With phones that are sold by a carrier, the updates are often held back by the carrier. That means many phones are vulnerable to security problems that have been fixed in newer releases, but don't get fixed because the phone company refuses to let the updates through.
Not so with the Nexus line of devices, including the Nexus 4. With the Nexus phone, Google handles all updates independent of the carrier's desires. One question in my mind about this setup is whether or not a Nexus phone sold by the carrier has the same freedom as an unlocked phone from Google. I don't know but I will check that out, too.
Here's a little side note about photos on the phone. With the old HTC One phone, I could just plug in the phone and the file system in the phone would be mounted by my computer. I could select three different options for connecting to a computer: Charging Only, Disk Drive and Tethering. I've never tried tethering, but my Ubuntu Linux machine had no problem recognizing the disk in the HTC One.
But with the new phone, things get a bit tricky. I did some research and found that Jelly Bean exposes the photo directory for mounting, but to set that up, the USB cable must be connected to the phone. I found this rather confusing. Upon connecting the phone to the USB cable I had somewhat confusing choices to make regarding the settings.
I could connect to my computer as a media device using the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP), but that is for Windows and Mac. Or I could use Photo Transfer Protocol (PTP) to connect to my computer as a camera, this is for computers that don't support MTP. My Linux computer falls into this category. This option doesn't show up until I connect the phone to the computer with a USB cable.
Once connected though, Shotwell, a Linux photo catalog program, recognizes the camera and will sync the photos to the disk. This was a concern for me before I bought the phone, so I'm glad it worked out.
I'm really enjoying my new phone. It's quick, efficient and fun to use. If you're in the market for a phone, the Nexus 4 is a great option to consider at $300, a price much lower than you'd pay for Samsung, LG or Motorola from the carrier. For me, it was money well spent.
The Nexus 4 is quick and nimble on its feet. It responds quickly to gesture commands and loads programs just as quickly. It's a miser when it comes to battery use and it has some new apps I did not expect to find on the phone.
When I got the phone, I tried to transfer the SIM card from the old phone to the new one, but the old SIM card was much too big. I trudged on down to the local T-Mobile shop and got a new SIM. With the new SIM in place, I was ready to roll.
I ran through the setup on the phone and logged into my Gmail account. Soon enough, my email and my contacts were loading. I headed home from the T-Mobile shop and when I got home, I found that an update was waiting and ready to run. This update would upgrade my phone to Android 4.3, Jelly Bean.
The update was quick and clean. On reboot, I had a slightly newer operating system, so there didn't appear to be much more to see. The boot times were much better than my old phone, too. On the old phone, I waited about 3-4 minutes for everything to load. On the new phone, I was up and running in much less than a minute. This was a very welcome change.
I enjoy playing a little game called Bejeweled Blitz. On the old phone, this took quite some time to load and often, it would hang while loading. On the new phone, it loads quick and is ready to run in a couple of seconds.
The larger screen provides ample real estate to work with. Icons on the home and other screens are easy to customize and locate as I want them to be. There is a bottom row of icons that appear on every screen so that I can get easy access to the programs I want from any screen.
There is the usual assortment of wallpapers, where you can use pictures, animations and the like. The new themes are very pretty, too.
The most significant new feature on the Nexus 4 is Google Now. Google Now is an intelligent personal assistant that uses your searches and email data to find information that is timely and relevant to your day. Just tap the Google search bar at the top of the home screen and Google Now appears. Google Now organizes items as a series of cards that appear on the screen. There's a card for the weather, a card for your appointments, news and other events around town.
With Google Now, I get the weather, my stock quotes to see where I'm at, and a few other things I didn't expect. For example, I ordered an item from Amazon and received a confirmation email. When I opened Google Now, I get the status on the latest package and within that card, I get a link to track the package. This is something that I wasn't expecting at all, but found it to be a very useful feature. When I was done with the card, i could just swipe it to the right to remove it.
My mom came out to visit us last weekend. A couple weeks prior to visiting us, she sent us her itinerary by email. On the day of the flight, Google Now used the information in that email to create a new card that provided me with the flight status, departure and landing times, gate and terminal number and a link to the original source email. This card made it easy for me to track the status of the flight without having to go to a website to look it up. When I was done with the card, I could just swipe it to the right to discard it. On the day that my mom was departing, a new card appeared for the flight home.
There are some minor and major advances with the Nexus 4 over my old phone. The biggest advance to me is the software update schedule. With phones that are sold by a carrier, the updates are often held back by the carrier. That means many phones are vulnerable to security problems that have been fixed in newer releases, but don't get fixed because the phone company refuses to let the updates through.
Not so with the Nexus line of devices, including the Nexus 4. With the Nexus phone, Google handles all updates independent of the carrier's desires. One question in my mind about this setup is whether or not a Nexus phone sold by the carrier has the same freedom as an unlocked phone from Google. I don't know but I will check that out, too.
Here's a little side note about photos on the phone. With the old HTC One phone, I could just plug in the phone and the file system in the phone would be mounted by my computer. I could select three different options for connecting to a computer: Charging Only, Disk Drive and Tethering. I've never tried tethering, but my Ubuntu Linux machine had no problem recognizing the disk in the HTC One.
But with the new phone, things get a bit tricky. I did some research and found that Jelly Bean exposes the photo directory for mounting, but to set that up, the USB cable must be connected to the phone. I found this rather confusing. Upon connecting the phone to the USB cable I had somewhat confusing choices to make regarding the settings.
I could connect to my computer as a media device using the Media Transfer Protocol (MTP), but that is for Windows and Mac. Or I could use Photo Transfer Protocol (PTP) to connect to my computer as a camera, this is for computers that don't support MTP. My Linux computer falls into this category. This option doesn't show up until I connect the phone to the computer with a USB cable.
Once connected though, Shotwell, a Linux photo catalog program, recognizes the camera and will sync the photos to the disk. This was a concern for me before I bought the phone, so I'm glad it worked out.
I'm really enjoying my new phone. It's quick, efficient and fun to use. If you're in the market for a phone, the Nexus 4 is a great option to consider at $300, a price much lower than you'd pay for Samsung, LG or Motorola from the carrier. For me, it was money well spent.
Friday, August 16, 2013
The Takers: Obamacare Opponents
On Facebook, I follow Senator Mike Lee, a man completely obsessed with the goal of defunding and repealing Obamacare. As you may see from his Facebook page, he goes on and on with posts about defunding and repealing Obamacare. But he seems to have a blind spot: protection for the healthcare industry, particularly for doctors.
In a normal economy, when supply gets low, prices rise and the suppliers increase the supply to meet the demand. This dynamic tends to normalize or even drop prices for the resource in demand. We see this with commodities like wheat, coffee, electronics and other items that are mass produced. Demand has often been met with imports.
But that is not happening with healthcare. In the United States, we pay double what many other industrialized countries pay for healthcare as a percentage of GDP. Yet, there is no policy effort underway to increase the supply of doctors. US Doctors make twice as much per year as their counterparts in other industrialized countries, yet, no one seems to mind.
If we were to cut our healthcare costs in half, we'd be seeing federal budget surpluses for years ahead rather than deficits. But Mike Lee won't tell you that. He has an important job: protecting the healthcare constituency.
The New York Times has an interesting piece identifying all the ways that the American healthcare system discriminates against foreign competition. The path to becoming a doctor in the United States is already expensive and confusing. But the barriers to entry to the market for foreign doctors can take far longer than American entrants to the field. The barriers to foreign doctors are not just protectionist beyond what is necessary to ensure quality doctors, they contribute healthcare inequality by raising the costs beyond what many Americans can afford. The high cost of health insurance has suppressed wages and that has dampened the economy.
The most important bottleneck to remove is to increase the number of residency positions available that are subsidized by Medicare. The number of residency positions supported by Medicare has been capped by Congress since 1997. Maybe Mike Lee doesn't understand economic theory, and that healthcare costs are a matter of supply and demand. You know, increase the supply of doctors and the cost of healthcare will drop.
But that's not what we're hearing from Mike Lee. No, what we're hearing is that he wants to defund and repeal Obamacare without offering any concrete or specific alternatives. It is also notable that we don't hear the American Medical Association chiming in about increasing supplies, either.
I think that the AMA is quite a bit like the US Chamber of Commerce. They are loathe to suggest real solutions that would help everyone. Rather, they want to help others so long as the earning power of doctors is not diminished in any way. Introducing foreign competition, increasing the number of slots available for residency at hospitals or harmonizing regulations with other countries in the healthcare industry never even make it to the conversation.
Until Mike Lee and his cohorts are ready to address the doctor shortage with meaningful solutions that include foreign competition for our domestic healthcare industry, we can only assume that they are just posturing for political points. What other logical conclusion is there to draw?
In a normal economy, when supply gets low, prices rise and the suppliers increase the supply to meet the demand. This dynamic tends to normalize or even drop prices for the resource in demand. We see this with commodities like wheat, coffee, electronics and other items that are mass produced. Demand has often been met with imports.
But that is not happening with healthcare. In the United States, we pay double what many other industrialized countries pay for healthcare as a percentage of GDP. Yet, there is no policy effort underway to increase the supply of doctors. US Doctors make twice as much per year as their counterparts in other industrialized countries, yet, no one seems to mind.
If we were to cut our healthcare costs in half, we'd be seeing federal budget surpluses for years ahead rather than deficits. But Mike Lee won't tell you that. He has an important job: protecting the healthcare constituency.
The New York Times has an interesting piece identifying all the ways that the American healthcare system discriminates against foreign competition. The path to becoming a doctor in the United States is already expensive and confusing. But the barriers to entry to the market for foreign doctors can take far longer than American entrants to the field. The barriers to foreign doctors are not just protectionist beyond what is necessary to ensure quality doctors, they contribute healthcare inequality by raising the costs beyond what many Americans can afford. The high cost of health insurance has suppressed wages and that has dampened the economy.
The most important bottleneck to remove is to increase the number of residency positions available that are subsidized by Medicare. The number of residency positions supported by Medicare has been capped by Congress since 1997. Maybe Mike Lee doesn't understand economic theory, and that healthcare costs are a matter of supply and demand. You know, increase the supply of doctors and the cost of healthcare will drop.
But that's not what we're hearing from Mike Lee. No, what we're hearing is that he wants to defund and repeal Obamacare without offering any concrete or specific alternatives. It is also notable that we don't hear the American Medical Association chiming in about increasing supplies, either.
I think that the AMA is quite a bit like the US Chamber of Commerce. They are loathe to suggest real solutions that would help everyone. Rather, they want to help others so long as the earning power of doctors is not diminished in any way. Introducing foreign competition, increasing the number of slots available for residency at hospitals or harmonizing regulations with other countries in the healthcare industry never even make it to the conversation.
Until Mike Lee and his cohorts are ready to address the doctor shortage with meaningful solutions that include foreign competition for our domestic healthcare industry, we can only assume that they are just posturing for political points. What other logical conclusion is there to draw?
Thursday, August 15, 2013
A New Machine
I like to make things last. The last time I bought a computer was in late 2008. I booted my computer one morning to find that the boot drive could not be found. It was an old Dell Dimension machine and the disk controller hosting the boot drive had failed. As soon as a break in work came along, I went to Best Buy to get a new machine.
That machine lasted for 5 years with no electronic or mechanical failures. It is slated to become an entertainment machine in the near future. It was an HP Pavillion machine and it ran Ubuntu just fine, but was getting a bit chunky with Gnome Shell since the machine had only 3GB of RAM. I know, I know, that's an odd number, but it worked pretty well for a long time.
Christmas came a bit early this year as I had the good fortune to be able to buy a new Dell XPS 8700. It had all the goodies. 4th generation Core i7 CPU, 12 GB of memory, 1 TB hard drive, 1 GB Radeon 7570 graphics card (a supercomputer on a card with 624 Gflops of computing power) and, well, Windows 8. This machine has a CPU that is about 8 times faster than the old machine, 4x the memory and almost 3x the disk space and the disk speed is double what it used to be on the old machine.
So that's enough to last at least 5 years of abuse from Ubuntu Linux. I can hear some of you now..."Linux? You're going to install Linux on that rig?" Sorry, bub. I run a Linux home. No Windows will run here again. Ever. Well, maybe I will run a virtual machine with Windows if I need it because some web resource requires Windows. But that's it.
To safely make use of this new computer with Linux, I had to take several precautions. First, I needed to be sure that Linux would run as expected on the machine. I started by disabling the Windows boot environment. I turned off secure boot. I turned off UEFI boot and relied instead on the legacy boot system. I made sure that the setup for Windows would never happen so that I could capture the disk in it's pristine condition.
Once I was sure that I had the BIOS set to run properly, I proceeded to image the hard disk. I started with Clonezilla on CD. But that wouldn't boot. I tried Parted Magic, but that wouldn't work either. I was going to use one of those tools to record an image of the hard disk before installing Ubuntu. This way, if something goes wrong, no problem. I can lay the original factory image back on the disk and ship it back.
For some reason, the live CD imaging tools were not working. Apparently, they were not able to find working space with the Windows 8 file system, an apparently newer version of NTFS. Or maybe it was vFAT. I don't know. Didn't need to know, either.
I used a nearby laptop to turn a USB drive into a Clonezilla boot disk and I was on my way. After about an hour of waiting for the image to complete, I was good to go. Happily, the new machine has more USB 3.0 ports that move data at 5 Gb/s than the USB 2.0 ports that poke along at 480 Mb/s. During the imaging process, I was moving data from the boot disk to the external hard disk I connected to the machine at rates up to 7 GB per minute. That saved a lot of time.
Whew. Once I had a good image of the disk, I was ready for the next step. I booted up Ubuntu Gnome on CD and started installing a new operating system. The option I chose was "Erase disk and install Ubuntu", and that is exactly what happened. Once the install process starts, I just wait about 15 minutes for it to complete. This is much, much faster than Windows.
Once Ubuntu was installed, I ran updates until there were no more. I also added the repository for Gnome 3.8 and installed that, too. I have a script that I run that will install what I want so that every new machine is approximately the same. See, the vast majority of programs in Linux are installed through repositories. I don't go to any websites to download and install them. This system makes scripted installs easy and much more secure.
Finally, I restored my data from backup. I have a few main folders that I need: Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos. I believe in backup, so I backup my data every day to an external USB drive. I do this because hard drives fail. It is not a question of if, but of when.
To restore my backups, I just right-click on the folder, select "Revert to previous version", and point to the latest backup on the external drive. Then I click Next and let the restore begin. Documents went fairly quickly, but the music folder took the longest. Once all of my personal files were restored, I am ready to roll.
Now I have a spiffy new machine that is clean and smooth running Ubuntu Gnome. If you'd like to learn more about Ubuntu Linux and how to migrate from Windows, let me know. I'm happy to point out the way.
That machine lasted for 5 years with no electronic or mechanical failures. It is slated to become an entertainment machine in the near future. It was an HP Pavillion machine and it ran Ubuntu just fine, but was getting a bit chunky with Gnome Shell since the machine had only 3GB of RAM. I know, I know, that's an odd number, but it worked pretty well for a long time.
Christmas came a bit early this year as I had the good fortune to be able to buy a new Dell XPS 8700. It had all the goodies. 4th generation Core i7 CPU, 12 GB of memory, 1 TB hard drive, 1 GB Radeon 7570 graphics card (a supercomputer on a card with 624 Gflops of computing power) and, well, Windows 8. This machine has a CPU that is about 8 times faster than the old machine, 4x the memory and almost 3x the disk space and the disk speed is double what it used to be on the old machine.
So that's enough to last at least 5 years of abuse from Ubuntu Linux. I can hear some of you now..."Linux? You're going to install Linux on that rig?" Sorry, bub. I run a Linux home. No Windows will run here again. Ever. Well, maybe I will run a virtual machine with Windows if I need it because some web resource requires Windows. But that's it.
To safely make use of this new computer with Linux, I had to take several precautions. First, I needed to be sure that Linux would run as expected on the machine. I started by disabling the Windows boot environment. I turned off secure boot. I turned off UEFI boot and relied instead on the legacy boot system. I made sure that the setup for Windows would never happen so that I could capture the disk in it's pristine condition.
Once I was sure that I had the BIOS set to run properly, I proceeded to image the hard disk. I started with Clonezilla on CD. But that wouldn't boot. I tried Parted Magic, but that wouldn't work either. I was going to use one of those tools to record an image of the hard disk before installing Ubuntu. This way, if something goes wrong, no problem. I can lay the original factory image back on the disk and ship it back.
For some reason, the live CD imaging tools were not working. Apparently, they were not able to find working space with the Windows 8 file system, an apparently newer version of NTFS. Or maybe it was vFAT. I don't know. Didn't need to know, either.
I used a nearby laptop to turn a USB drive into a Clonezilla boot disk and I was on my way. After about an hour of waiting for the image to complete, I was good to go. Happily, the new machine has more USB 3.0 ports that move data at 5 Gb/s than the USB 2.0 ports that poke along at 480 Mb/s. During the imaging process, I was moving data from the boot disk to the external hard disk I connected to the machine at rates up to 7 GB per minute. That saved a lot of time.
Whew. Once I had a good image of the disk, I was ready for the next step. I booted up Ubuntu Gnome on CD and started installing a new operating system. The option I chose was "Erase disk and install Ubuntu", and that is exactly what happened. Once the install process starts, I just wait about 15 minutes for it to complete. This is much, much faster than Windows.
Once Ubuntu was installed, I ran updates until there were no more. I also added the repository for Gnome 3.8 and installed that, too. I have a script that I run that will install what I want so that every new machine is approximately the same. See, the vast majority of programs in Linux are installed through repositories. I don't go to any websites to download and install them. This system makes scripted installs easy and much more secure.
Finally, I restored my data from backup. I have a few main folders that I need: Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos. I believe in backup, so I backup my data every day to an external USB drive. I do this because hard drives fail. It is not a question of if, but of when.
To restore my backups, I just right-click on the folder, select "Revert to previous version", and point to the latest backup on the external drive. Then I click Next and let the restore begin. Documents went fairly quickly, but the music folder took the longest. Once all of my personal files were restored, I am ready to roll.
Now I have a spiffy new machine that is clean and smooth running Ubuntu Gnome. If you'd like to learn more about Ubuntu Linux and how to migrate from Windows, let me know. I'm happy to point out the way.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
What good is an advantage over another?
I see it all the time. People seeking an advantage over others. Every competitor vying for the top spot, edging out the other guy, excluding others from the arena or, in some cases, destroying the competition so that they never return. It is folly to imagine that securing an advantage over others will make your life better, bring happiness or security. it will do the opposite.
I like to drive. I have a style and manner of driving that is fairly consistent. On the freeway, I drive so that I rarely have to use the brakes except for exiting, stop and go traffic, and the occasional slow driver who happens to change lanes without proper notice in front of me. For me, any use of the brakes on the freeway is wasted gas.
So I measure my inputs and distance between me and the next car. I let the friction working against the car to act as a natural brake. When approaching other cars in front of me, I try to estimate when to left off the gas so as to allow friction to slow the car down enough to match the speed of the car in front of me. This way I don't have to use the brakes to match the speed of the car ahead of me. In this manner, I made a set of brake pads last 60,000 miles.
I give trucks a wide berth and let them merge to be polite and to save fuel. I let people change lanes and often, they are off on their merry way. I move in ways that facilitate movement on the freeway because we share the road and there is plenty of room for all. I leave early to give plenty of time for a leisurely drive to my destination. I don't have to race to my destination.
I have had my share of speeding to get ahead of another guy. I know what it's like when someone gets ahead of me. With age, I began to realize that in a minute or two, I will have forgotten the other guy. Proving superiority to another guy on the freeway is about as useless as winning an argument with a drunk man. There is no point. But there is lost time. Time that could have been used to plan for better things.
In technology, I see one company pitting its resources against another to win. Microsoft is a great example. They have a "take no prisoners" philosophy. They structured their company so that even divisions within the company were competing against each other. They structured their review process so that someone was always pegged as the top guy and the bottom guy, with the bottom guy almost certainly dismissed. How are they doing now? Their stock has been going sideways for about ten years now. They have been overwhelmed by competitors because they do not play nice with others.
In politics I see one political faction pitting their resources against other factions, seeking an advantage over the other, with the intention of imposing its will upon the other. When one faction wins, the will of that faction will almost certainly be imposed upon others. Does this make anyone happier?
I don't think so. I've never seen it work. If a man works hard to build a business and finds a way to get employees to work for less money, fewer benefits, and that increases the company profits, does that make anyone happier? Anyone at all?
It is obvious that employees will be no happier. We would think that the employer would be happier. For a time, he may be happier, but only for a short time. His brain may be momentarily satisfied. But now, he has elicited resentments from his employees, so he seeks comfort from other employers to justify what he has done. He seeks comfort from the shareholders to approve what he has done. He insists that he is cutting back to save the jobs.
The painful reality is that his brain just wants more of something and money seems to provide temporary relief from that pain. Never mind that this executive has the force of law, contracts and the political support of his government to assert his advantage over others. That isn't enough. Whatever he's got, he wants more to settle the voice in his brain, to secure an advantage so that it will never be taken away.
This is the "wealth incumbency" that Jon Stewart talks about. People go into business to make their lives better. But for some business owners, it's "a battle", "a war", "a struggle" or some other euphemism to demonstrate a conflict. It is, to them, a contest of wills. If you see running a business as a contest of wills, you're probably not going to be happy running the business.
The Reagan Revolution, on its face, promised prosperity for all. The tax cuts to the wealthiest among us were held out to all as a carrot on a stick to encourage us to grow rich. But not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Not everyone has the desire or inclination to run a business. Most of us just want to work at a job we enjoy and take a middle class paycheck home to the family.
The tax cuts were not used to spread the prosperity around. They were used instead to build, secure and assert an advantage for the business owners over the rest of us. For example, the trend over the last 30 years has seen business investments move from labor to capital. This means that instead of paying employees to do the work, more automation is in use or, labor has been moved offshore. This resulted in exploding profits for the largest corporations. This is a tremendous advantage.
What will employers do with this advantage? They will use it to buy homes in gated communities, private security services, power generators for their homes, private schooling for their kids. They will seek distance from the middle class, both in economic and social terms to ensure that they no longer have to compete directly with the middle class or even have contact with them.
This isn't the culture imagined by the Founders of this country. They saw the problems with the aristocracy in England. They intended not to make the same mistake again, to create a level playing field for all. But their legacy has been subverted into yet another aristocracy.
It is not nice to build a ladder, climb it, and take it with you so that others cannot follow you. This is what the 1% have been doing for the last 30 years. They built an advantage over the 99% and then took the ladder away. Is anyone happy for this? I doubt it.
I like to drive. I have a style and manner of driving that is fairly consistent. On the freeway, I drive so that I rarely have to use the brakes except for exiting, stop and go traffic, and the occasional slow driver who happens to change lanes without proper notice in front of me. For me, any use of the brakes on the freeway is wasted gas.
So I measure my inputs and distance between me and the next car. I let the friction working against the car to act as a natural brake. When approaching other cars in front of me, I try to estimate when to left off the gas so as to allow friction to slow the car down enough to match the speed of the car in front of me. This way I don't have to use the brakes to match the speed of the car ahead of me. In this manner, I made a set of brake pads last 60,000 miles.
I give trucks a wide berth and let them merge to be polite and to save fuel. I let people change lanes and often, they are off on their merry way. I move in ways that facilitate movement on the freeway because we share the road and there is plenty of room for all. I leave early to give plenty of time for a leisurely drive to my destination. I don't have to race to my destination.
I have had my share of speeding to get ahead of another guy. I know what it's like when someone gets ahead of me. With age, I began to realize that in a minute or two, I will have forgotten the other guy. Proving superiority to another guy on the freeway is about as useless as winning an argument with a drunk man. There is no point. But there is lost time. Time that could have been used to plan for better things.
In technology, I see one company pitting its resources against another to win. Microsoft is a great example. They have a "take no prisoners" philosophy. They structured their company so that even divisions within the company were competing against each other. They structured their review process so that someone was always pegged as the top guy and the bottom guy, with the bottom guy almost certainly dismissed. How are they doing now? Their stock has been going sideways for about ten years now. They have been overwhelmed by competitors because they do not play nice with others.
In politics I see one political faction pitting their resources against other factions, seeking an advantage over the other, with the intention of imposing its will upon the other. When one faction wins, the will of that faction will almost certainly be imposed upon others. Does this make anyone happier?
I don't think so. I've never seen it work. If a man works hard to build a business and finds a way to get employees to work for less money, fewer benefits, and that increases the company profits, does that make anyone happier? Anyone at all?
It is obvious that employees will be no happier. We would think that the employer would be happier. For a time, he may be happier, but only for a short time. His brain may be momentarily satisfied. But now, he has elicited resentments from his employees, so he seeks comfort from other employers to justify what he has done. He seeks comfort from the shareholders to approve what he has done. He insists that he is cutting back to save the jobs.
The painful reality is that his brain just wants more of something and money seems to provide temporary relief from that pain. Never mind that this executive has the force of law, contracts and the political support of his government to assert his advantage over others. That isn't enough. Whatever he's got, he wants more to settle the voice in his brain, to secure an advantage so that it will never be taken away.
This is the "wealth incumbency" that Jon Stewart talks about. People go into business to make their lives better. But for some business owners, it's "a battle", "a war", "a struggle" or some other euphemism to demonstrate a conflict. It is, to them, a contest of wills. If you see running a business as a contest of wills, you're probably not going to be happy running the business.
The Reagan Revolution, on its face, promised prosperity for all. The tax cuts to the wealthiest among us were held out to all as a carrot on a stick to encourage us to grow rich. But not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Not everyone has the desire or inclination to run a business. Most of us just want to work at a job we enjoy and take a middle class paycheck home to the family.
The tax cuts were not used to spread the prosperity around. They were used instead to build, secure and assert an advantage for the business owners over the rest of us. For example, the trend over the last 30 years has seen business investments move from labor to capital. This means that instead of paying employees to do the work, more automation is in use or, labor has been moved offshore. This resulted in exploding profits for the largest corporations. This is a tremendous advantage.
What will employers do with this advantage? They will use it to buy homes in gated communities, private security services, power generators for their homes, private schooling for their kids. They will seek distance from the middle class, both in economic and social terms to ensure that they no longer have to compete directly with the middle class or even have contact with them.
This isn't the culture imagined by the Founders of this country. They saw the problems with the aristocracy in England. They intended not to make the same mistake again, to create a level playing field for all. But their legacy has been subverted into yet another aristocracy.
It is not nice to build a ladder, climb it, and take it with you so that others cannot follow you. This is what the 1% have been doing for the last 30 years. They built an advantage over the 99% and then took the ladder away. Is anyone happy for this? I doubt it.
Friday, August 09, 2013
A new feature I discovered for YouTube
My wife Alice and I like to watch educational YouTube videos with Emily, our daughter. Alice has been checking out videos to find simple educational videos with numbers, letters and nursery rhymes and there are plenty. Among them, I strongly recommend Hoopla Kidz and Super Simple Learning. Navigating YouTube to play them is a snap on our phones and computers. We like to watch YouTube with our DVD player, too.
However, the YouTube app on our Samsung DVD player is incredibly dim-witted. It takes a couple of seconds for the cursor to advance with each press of the direction buttons. This makes for some arduous navigation to find videos we want to watch in YouTube. I've tried connecting a wireless keyboard to the DVD player, but it didn't much like that, preferring instead to make us navigate with a remote control to select characters, one character at a time to search.
While navigating the YouTube menus one day to get videos started for Emily, I went too far, unable to compensate for the speed of the cursor and landed on the Settings menu. Therein, I saw a box that said, "Pair With Device". I was aware that this could be done, but thought that only applied to the latest version of Android. My phone has Android 2.3 and the latest version is 4.3, so I didn't give it another thought until yesterday.
Yesterday, I paused at the Settings menu once more and reflected, "What if this works?" I pressed the right arrow key and selected Pair With Device. The screen presented me with a URL, a numeric code, and a barcode, I just love those barcodes. So I scanned the barcode with my phone and the phone prompted me with a URL. I tap on the URL and a web browser opens presenting me with a form is already populated with the number code entered. I scrolled down and tapped Add.
Then I open YouTube on my phone and notice a new icon at the top of the screen, a little rectangle with a wireless icon next to it, called "Send to TV". Now I can select a video with my phone and tell my DVD player to play it. Of course, the DVD player has to be running YouTube while my phone is running YouTube, but you get the idea.
To direct the DVD player running YouTube to play a video from my phone, I open the YouTube application on my phone. Then I select a video I want to play. This could be from play history, search results or a playlist. When I tap the video I want from my phone, the page for that video loads in the phone and I can tap Send to TV. Then the DVD player loads the selected video and plays it. Cool, huh?
YouTube navigation with my phone is far easier than with the DVD player. I also have a usable keyboard with the phone whereas the DVD player makes me work through a ridiculous onscreen keyboard which is also slow.
After making this discovery, I played around a bit with the new feature. I learned that I can select a video and play it, then send it to the TV in midstream. I can even manage the start point of a video from my phone and tell the TV to play from that start point. I also learned that I can select a playlist from my phone and there is a button called "Play On TV" so that I can send the entire playlist to the TV. Very interesting.
It's not exactly like the recently released Chromecast dongle, which streams from your phone or tablet to the Chromecast dongle, but it seems to work like that. I would think that streaming from your phone or tablet would run down the battery pretty fast. I haven't used Chromecast yet, but if I do, I'll let you know how that works.
The device pairing feature doesn't seem to stream from the phone when playing videos. Instead, it seems to direct the YouTube app on the DVD player to stream the video of choice. This conserves battery power on the phone as the wireless radio on the phone munches on battery power like potato chips. Sending directions to the YouTube app from the phone to play videos makes a lot more sense. With a little experimentation, I might figure out how to play entire playlists without further intervention once the playlist is started.
It's important to note that on the TV side, the device could be a Smart TV, DVD player or streaming device such as a Roku streaming player. On the other side, the device could be your phone, your tablet or even your computer. As long as you can get to the Add Device form from a browser and enter the numeric code, you should be able to direct the action of the target device on the TV side with no problems.
The Pair With Device feature for YouTube is a very cool innovation. It is not really an invention, as it is just an obvious extension of what the YouTube app on the phone and the DVD player can already do. I'm glad to find more freedom from the user interface in the DVD player and be able to use other devices to control YouTube on my TV. You might want to give it a try.
However, the YouTube app on our Samsung DVD player is incredibly dim-witted. It takes a couple of seconds for the cursor to advance with each press of the direction buttons. This makes for some arduous navigation to find videos we want to watch in YouTube. I've tried connecting a wireless keyboard to the DVD player, but it didn't much like that, preferring instead to make us navigate with a remote control to select characters, one character at a time to search.
While navigating the YouTube menus one day to get videos started for Emily, I went too far, unable to compensate for the speed of the cursor and landed on the Settings menu. Therein, I saw a box that said, "Pair With Device". I was aware that this could be done, but thought that only applied to the latest version of Android. My phone has Android 2.3 and the latest version is 4.3, so I didn't give it another thought until yesterday.
Yesterday, I paused at the Settings menu once more and reflected, "What if this works?" I pressed the right arrow key and selected Pair With Device. The screen presented me with a URL, a numeric code, and a barcode, I just love those barcodes. So I scanned the barcode with my phone and the phone prompted me with a URL. I tap on the URL and a web browser opens presenting me with a form is already populated with the number code entered. I scrolled down and tapped Add.
Then I open YouTube on my phone and notice a new icon at the top of the screen, a little rectangle with a wireless icon next to it, called "Send to TV". Now I can select a video with my phone and tell my DVD player to play it. Of course, the DVD player has to be running YouTube while my phone is running YouTube, but you get the idea.
To direct the DVD player running YouTube to play a video from my phone, I open the YouTube application on my phone. Then I select a video I want to play. This could be from play history, search results or a playlist. When I tap the video I want from my phone, the page for that video loads in the phone and I can tap Send to TV. Then the DVD player loads the selected video and plays it. Cool, huh?
YouTube navigation with my phone is far easier than with the DVD player. I also have a usable keyboard with the phone whereas the DVD player makes me work through a ridiculous onscreen keyboard which is also slow.
After making this discovery, I played around a bit with the new feature. I learned that I can select a video and play it, then send it to the TV in midstream. I can even manage the start point of a video from my phone and tell the TV to play from that start point. I also learned that I can select a playlist from my phone and there is a button called "Play On TV" so that I can send the entire playlist to the TV. Very interesting.
It's not exactly like the recently released Chromecast dongle, which streams from your phone or tablet to the Chromecast dongle, but it seems to work like that. I would think that streaming from your phone or tablet would run down the battery pretty fast. I haven't used Chromecast yet, but if I do, I'll let you know how that works.
The device pairing feature doesn't seem to stream from the phone when playing videos. Instead, it seems to direct the YouTube app on the DVD player to stream the video of choice. This conserves battery power on the phone as the wireless radio on the phone munches on battery power like potato chips. Sending directions to the YouTube app from the phone to play videos makes a lot more sense. With a little experimentation, I might figure out how to play entire playlists without further intervention once the playlist is started.
It's important to note that on the TV side, the device could be a Smart TV, DVD player or streaming device such as a Roku streaming player. On the other side, the device could be your phone, your tablet or even your computer. As long as you can get to the Add Device form from a browser and enter the numeric code, you should be able to direct the action of the target device on the TV side with no problems.
The Pair With Device feature for YouTube is a very cool innovation. It is not really an invention, as it is just an obvious extension of what the YouTube app on the phone and the DVD player can already do. I'm glad to find more freedom from the user interface in the DVD player and be able to use other devices to control YouTube on my TV. You might want to give it a try.
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
The Waves
I have a certain fascination with gravity. I like to see how things orbit, fall and roll. Waves are one of those things that roll. Today, I'd like to talk about the really big waves. You know, like Mavericks.
After seeing Strapped: The Origins Of Tow-in Surfing, I have a newfound respect for surfers. I am not a surfer, but I have always respected surfers as people who are intimately connected to the Earth. They understand the rhythm of the Earth, much like the farmers do, but in an entirely different context. Strapped raises my respect for surfers in new ways and provides ample eye candy in form of giant waves and the surreal contrast in scale. Imagine a wave that looks normal in every way, but nothing gives it scale until you see this tiny guy on a surfboard, on a gigantic wave. That's what we see in Strapped.
I have known a few surfers throughout my life and have found them to be calm, relaxed, and generally at ease with themselves. The only thing that seems to matter to them is current surf conditions. I know this because years ago, I was working a construction job in Newport Beach. I had to meet with the building engineer who happened to be a surfer. After we exchanged greetings for the morning, he took a deep draw of air through his nose, exhaled and said, "Hmmm. Smells like the wind is offshore today. I think I'll go surfing after work."
Strapped, shows us how the technology of the day has been adapted for use at places where big waves crest. At Mavericks, for example, waves often crest at 25 feet or more and waves as big as 80 feet have been witnessed. Strapped teaches us how they adapted the hydrofoil to the surfboard, creating a nearly frictionless glider that can keep up with the large waves.
The pioneers who figured out how to surf the really big waves learned how to adapt the hydrofoil to the surf board. The foilboard allows a surfer to glide on the wave with much less friction than a typical surf board because at certain speeds, the hydrofoil lifts the surfboard out of the water. With the board out of the water, surface contact between the board and the water is about a tenth of what it would be if the board were in contact with the water while riding.
Strapped also illustrates how jet skis can be used to rescue surfers in peril, quickly. With a 25 foot wave coming, getting in to rescue a downed surfer and getting out quick is not easy swimming by hand. A jet ski makes short work of this effort.
Strapped reminds me of the power of gravity, the weakest force of the four known forces of the universe (the others are the weak, strong and electromagnetic forces). The tidal forces at work to create the waves on the water don't seem like much at waters edge. But two miles out at Mavericks, the waves easily demonstrates how much power is at work as the Earth and the moon do their dance.
So if you're looking for a good surf movie, with some mechanics and science behind the craft, Strapped is a great film to watch.
After seeing Strapped: The Origins Of Tow-in Surfing, I have a newfound respect for surfers. I am not a surfer, but I have always respected surfers as people who are intimately connected to the Earth. They understand the rhythm of the Earth, much like the farmers do, but in an entirely different context. Strapped raises my respect for surfers in new ways and provides ample eye candy in form of giant waves and the surreal contrast in scale. Imagine a wave that looks normal in every way, but nothing gives it scale until you see this tiny guy on a surfboard, on a gigantic wave. That's what we see in Strapped.
I have known a few surfers throughout my life and have found them to be calm, relaxed, and generally at ease with themselves. The only thing that seems to matter to them is current surf conditions. I know this because years ago, I was working a construction job in Newport Beach. I had to meet with the building engineer who happened to be a surfer. After we exchanged greetings for the morning, he took a deep draw of air through his nose, exhaled and said, "Hmmm. Smells like the wind is offshore today. I think I'll go surfing after work."
Strapped, shows us how the technology of the day has been adapted for use at places where big waves crest. At Mavericks, for example, waves often crest at 25 feet or more and waves as big as 80 feet have been witnessed. Strapped teaches us how they adapted the hydrofoil to the surfboard, creating a nearly frictionless glider that can keep up with the large waves.
The pioneers who figured out how to surf the really big waves learned how to adapt the hydrofoil to the surf board. The foilboard allows a surfer to glide on the wave with much less friction than a typical surf board because at certain speeds, the hydrofoil lifts the surfboard out of the water. With the board out of the water, surface contact between the board and the water is about a tenth of what it would be if the board were in contact with the water while riding.
Strapped also illustrates how jet skis can be used to rescue surfers in peril, quickly. With a 25 foot wave coming, getting in to rescue a downed surfer and getting out quick is not easy swimming by hand. A jet ski makes short work of this effort.
Strapped reminds me of the power of gravity, the weakest force of the four known forces of the universe (the others are the weak, strong and electromagnetic forces). The tidal forces at work to create the waves on the water don't seem like much at waters edge. But two miles out at Mavericks, the waves easily demonstrates how much power is at work as the Earth and the moon do their dance.
So if you're looking for a good surf movie, with some mechanics and science behind the craft, Strapped is a great film to watch.
Tuesday, August 06, 2013
A patent reversal for Apple
It is interesting to see the patent fight going on between Samsung and Apple. Since about 2010, these two giant companies have been sparring over patent rights in an effort to assert dominance in a very competitive cell phone handset market.
Very simply put, Apple started it. Steve Jobs declared that Android, the operating system running on Samsung phones, steals from Apple. From that point forward, Jobs pointed his legal army at Samsung to stifle competition from Samsung.
Samsung now has a very comfortable lead in handset market share over Apple, worldwide. But at home, Apple is still doing very well. But you wouldn't know it based on the latest news that President Obama stepped in to help Apple.
Samsung has been asserting standard essential patents against Apple at the International Trade Commission. Apple has been unwilling to negotiate fairly, claiming that Samsung is asking for royalties that are too high. Never mind that Apple has been demanding $30 per handset from Samsung to license Apple patents. Apple would surely like to put Samsung out of the cell phone business, but they cannot in a free market. Apple would also prefer to skate on Samsung's patents and if they could, still get $30 per phone from Samsung.
Ultimately, Samsung prevailed at the ITC and was awarded an exclusion order that would prevent some older model iPhones and iPads from being imported into the United States. To prevent the ugly spectacle of an American company being unable to import it's own products into the United States, President Obama has stepped in and vetoed the ITC's decision. Samsung will not get the exclusion order.
While President Obama talks highly of the innovators, he is clearly biased towards *domestic* innovators. It no secret that he would prefer that Apple prevail against foreign companies like Samsung. But to pick winners and losers like this is so unbecoming of him. Or maybe not. Maybe he had a debt to pay to Apple.
Had the exclusion order been upheld, Samsung could negotiate with Apple in good faith as Apple was unwilling to do so. Obama says that the parties can still fight it out in the courts. Maybe so, maybe not. I don't know. But watching what is going on with Microsoft vs Motorola suggests that it's going to be tough sledding for Samsung.
In Microsoft vs. Motorola, we have a similar argument over standards essential patents. Microsoft is asking a court in their backyard of Redmond, to rule against Motorola. Microsoft is asking the court to impose upon Motorola, a very, very low license fee for Microsoft to pay for standard essential patents. This is despite the fact that Microsoft is unwilling to negotiate in good faith. This idea that we can forum shop or assert home rules against a non-local entity is not in the spirit of free trade.
If Obama wants American patents to be honored abroad, he needs to rescind the veto of the ITCs decision and let the exclusion order stand. If not, then this decision could be the start of an entirely different patent war. A war where patents are not honored across borders. Is that what you want, Mr. President?
I want that. That would free up trade. That would prevent the continuation of the war on free software maintained by the patent owners of the software world, namely Microsoft. In some ways, what President Obama did is good. But if he's going to do it for Apple, he needs to do it for foreign companies when he thinks that patent owners are overreaching.
Treat everyone equally, Mr. President. Don't just act in favor of the home team.
Very simply put, Apple started it. Steve Jobs declared that Android, the operating system running on Samsung phones, steals from Apple. From that point forward, Jobs pointed his legal army at Samsung to stifle competition from Samsung.
Samsung now has a very comfortable lead in handset market share over Apple, worldwide. But at home, Apple is still doing very well. But you wouldn't know it based on the latest news that President Obama stepped in to help Apple.
Samsung has been asserting standard essential patents against Apple at the International Trade Commission. Apple has been unwilling to negotiate fairly, claiming that Samsung is asking for royalties that are too high. Never mind that Apple has been demanding $30 per handset from Samsung to license Apple patents. Apple would surely like to put Samsung out of the cell phone business, but they cannot in a free market. Apple would also prefer to skate on Samsung's patents and if they could, still get $30 per phone from Samsung.
Ultimately, Samsung prevailed at the ITC and was awarded an exclusion order that would prevent some older model iPhones and iPads from being imported into the United States. To prevent the ugly spectacle of an American company being unable to import it's own products into the United States, President Obama has stepped in and vetoed the ITC's decision. Samsung will not get the exclusion order.
While President Obama talks highly of the innovators, he is clearly biased towards *domestic* innovators. It no secret that he would prefer that Apple prevail against foreign companies like Samsung. But to pick winners and losers like this is so unbecoming of him. Or maybe not. Maybe he had a debt to pay to Apple.
Had the exclusion order been upheld, Samsung could negotiate with Apple in good faith as Apple was unwilling to do so. Obama says that the parties can still fight it out in the courts. Maybe so, maybe not. I don't know. But watching what is going on with Microsoft vs Motorola suggests that it's going to be tough sledding for Samsung.
In Microsoft vs. Motorola, we have a similar argument over standards essential patents. Microsoft is asking a court in their backyard of Redmond, to rule against Motorola. Microsoft is asking the court to impose upon Motorola, a very, very low license fee for Microsoft to pay for standard essential patents. This is despite the fact that Microsoft is unwilling to negotiate in good faith. This idea that we can forum shop or assert home rules against a non-local entity is not in the spirit of free trade.
If Obama wants American patents to be honored abroad, he needs to rescind the veto of the ITCs decision and let the exclusion order stand. If not, then this decision could be the start of an entirely different patent war. A war where patents are not honored across borders. Is that what you want, Mr. President?
I want that. That would free up trade. That would prevent the continuation of the war on free software maintained by the patent owners of the software world, namely Microsoft. In some ways, what President Obama did is good. But if he's going to do it for Apple, he needs to do it for foreign companies when he thinks that patent owners are overreaching.
Treat everyone equally, Mr. President. Don't just act in favor of the home team.
Sunday, August 04, 2013
Music on a quiet Sunday afternoon
I spent part of this afternoon, listening to one of my all time favorite CDs, Gymnopedies Gnossien, by the Jaques Loussier Trio. It is an amazing adaptation of classical music to jazz. The piano play is precision in music. The drums and the bass simply weave a background of music that literally twirls the ears around in some wild fantasy of simple sounds in a way that brings peace to my brain. It is by far, one of the best compilations of jazz I have ever heard.
I would not have taken an interest in it had I not been listening to public radio years ago and my father had not introduced me to jazz. It was my father who had also introduced me to Herbie Mann's classic album, Turtle Bay.
While these compilations are no doubt fantastic works of art, they leave something to be desired as they are only replicas. With every copy, there is some information lost due to the process of recording and replicating the recording. Like a copy machine with paper, with each succeeding copy, the resulting image or reproduction loses a little something from the original.
It was Neil Young whom I first heard complaining that the 44khz sample rate of CDs was not enough, not even close to what we get on vinyl disks. For a man who has toured the world and played on stage to large audiences, with giant amps behind him, I am surprised that he can hear so well as to find fault with CDs.
I remember my first CD player. I brought it to my friend Jerry's apartment to play Sgt. Pepper and he was astounded at the bright clarity of the playback. I thought CDs were cool because CDs were easy to care for, last for decades (I know, still I have CDs that I bought in 1988). The fact that they were compact, easy to store and wouldn't warp like vinyl had me sold.
Most of us these days, rarely handle CDs, though. I rip CDs soon after I buy them and play them on my computer, my phone or a computer at work if convenient. For the most part, I leave the CDs alone and let them rest for the day that I might need to rip them again in the next digital music format.
I am partially deaf in one ear and profoundly deaf in the other ear, yet I still find joy in music. I am aware of the iPod syndrome - deafness through iPod. The previous generation had Walkmans, but almost all of them have hearing aids now. I wear a hearing aid, too. I have long wondered what the brain does with the slight delay of the amplified sound through the hearing aid and from the hole in the mold that lets sound straight through. I suspect that the brain cannot tell the difference and if it does, well...the brain probably interpolates the sound just fine.
In some quarters, vinyl or analog music is making a comeback. Even vacuum tubes are being used in new electronics to give music that warm fuzzy sound we had with our old audio gear is coming back, too. There is something to be said about analog music, too. It just feels more natural to some.
But nothing can compare with listening to it live. Oh, how I would have loved to have been behind the glass in the control room while Jaques Loussier and his band were recording the Gnossiens. The magic in the room must have been mesmerizing.
For now, I can enjoy a quiet Sunday afternoon with this music playing as the clouds pass between me and the sun, changing the light in the room, and reminding me that this season soon will pass.
I would not have taken an interest in it had I not been listening to public radio years ago and my father had not introduced me to jazz. It was my father who had also introduced me to Herbie Mann's classic album, Turtle Bay.
While these compilations are no doubt fantastic works of art, they leave something to be desired as they are only replicas. With every copy, there is some information lost due to the process of recording and replicating the recording. Like a copy machine with paper, with each succeeding copy, the resulting image or reproduction loses a little something from the original.
It was Neil Young whom I first heard complaining that the 44khz sample rate of CDs was not enough, not even close to what we get on vinyl disks. For a man who has toured the world and played on stage to large audiences, with giant amps behind him, I am surprised that he can hear so well as to find fault with CDs.
I remember my first CD player. I brought it to my friend Jerry's apartment to play Sgt. Pepper and he was astounded at the bright clarity of the playback. I thought CDs were cool because CDs were easy to care for, last for decades (I know, still I have CDs that I bought in 1988). The fact that they were compact, easy to store and wouldn't warp like vinyl had me sold.
Most of us these days, rarely handle CDs, though. I rip CDs soon after I buy them and play them on my computer, my phone or a computer at work if convenient. For the most part, I leave the CDs alone and let them rest for the day that I might need to rip them again in the next digital music format.
I am partially deaf in one ear and profoundly deaf in the other ear, yet I still find joy in music. I am aware of the iPod syndrome - deafness through iPod. The previous generation had Walkmans, but almost all of them have hearing aids now. I wear a hearing aid, too. I have long wondered what the brain does with the slight delay of the amplified sound through the hearing aid and from the hole in the mold that lets sound straight through. I suspect that the brain cannot tell the difference and if it does, well...the brain probably interpolates the sound just fine.
In some quarters, vinyl or analog music is making a comeback. Even vacuum tubes are being used in new electronics to give music that warm fuzzy sound we had with our old audio gear is coming back, too. There is something to be said about analog music, too. It just feels more natural to some.
But nothing can compare with listening to it live. Oh, how I would have loved to have been behind the glass in the control room while Jaques Loussier and his band were recording the Gnossiens. The magic in the room must have been mesmerizing.
For now, I can enjoy a quiet Sunday afternoon with this music playing as the clouds pass between me and the sun, changing the light in the room, and reminding me that this season soon will pass.
Friday, August 02, 2013
The hole in the tech news
Over the years, I've noticed a sort of hole in the tech news. Here's an example: Airports' passport controls SHUT DOWN by 'malware' - report. Reading this report, we only know that the passport control system at the airport in the city of Istanbul was shut down by malware. There is simply no mention of the operating systems used on the servers or the client machines that were used to host and manage the passport control system. Does the reporter assume that we know they're running Windows? Maybe. Maybe not.
What OS were they running? That is the first question I ask myself when I read articles such as these, yet, that is the piece of the story that is almost always missing.
Whenever I read "malware" stories, I think of Microsoft Windows. But reading through this short article, there is no mention of Windows whatsoever. This omission is not an isolated example.
Let's take one of the most interesting examples, the London Stock Exchange the first business day after the Federal Reserve announced that it would rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That day was September 8th, 2008. On that day, the LSE was down for more than 7 hours while the rest of the world was trading on the news that the Fed was going to save the largest holders of mortgages in the US from certain doom.
Every report I read about this event waxed eloquent about the failure of the stock exchange that day, with one major detail omitted: what operating system was running at the time. As it turns out, the LSE was running their trading system on a .NET application platform on top of Windows servers. I didn't learn which operating system was running the trading floor at the LSE until I found this article more than two years later.
I venture to guess that Microsoft took great pains to keep those details out of the news. I suspect that Microsoft makes a monumental effort with every major failure of Windows Servers to keep that one detail out of the news. It would seem that they have had a great deal of success because it is mentioned in only very rare cases. I can easily see Microsoft threatening reports with the loss of access to key personnel for scoops if they should happen to let that detail get out.
It is sad to see that Microsoft, so eager to stomp on the faults of others, is so shy about monumental failures on their part, failures that cost others millions. Needless to say, the Windows trading system at the LSE was eventually replaced by a more reliable system running on Linux.
Microsoft is no longer dominant in the computing space as Windows is unable to dominate over free Linux and even non-free UNIX. Yes, there are still plenty of shops that run Windows, but the biggest shops are not using Windows Servers. Google, eBay and Amazon to name a few, don't use Windows on their servers. If they tried, Microsoft would simply raise their license fees to squelch a potential competitor out of business.
Microsoft is also no longer dominant in consumer computing devices and has been losing relevance since about 1995. The PC market is shrinking in favor of tablets and smartphones. Android, which also runs on Linux, owns 80% of the smartphone market. As a result of the shifts in the market, it is now estimated that Windows runs on a mere 20% of all network connected devices.
Perhaps reporters will find fewer inhibitions to reporting the failures of Windows in major service interruption events now that Microsoft no longer dominates over everyone else. Honest and complete reporting will allow businesses and consumers to make more informed choices about the software they wish to run on their computers.
What OS were they running? That is the first question I ask myself when I read articles such as these, yet, that is the piece of the story that is almost always missing.
Whenever I read "malware" stories, I think of Microsoft Windows. But reading through this short article, there is no mention of Windows whatsoever. This omission is not an isolated example.
Let's take one of the most interesting examples, the London Stock Exchange the first business day after the Federal Reserve announced that it would rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That day was September 8th, 2008. On that day, the LSE was down for more than 7 hours while the rest of the world was trading on the news that the Fed was going to save the largest holders of mortgages in the US from certain doom.
Every report I read about this event waxed eloquent about the failure of the stock exchange that day, with one major detail omitted: what operating system was running at the time. As it turns out, the LSE was running their trading system on a .NET application platform on top of Windows servers. I didn't learn which operating system was running the trading floor at the LSE until I found this article more than two years later.
I venture to guess that Microsoft took great pains to keep those details out of the news. I suspect that Microsoft makes a monumental effort with every major failure of Windows Servers to keep that one detail out of the news. It would seem that they have had a great deal of success because it is mentioned in only very rare cases. I can easily see Microsoft threatening reports with the loss of access to key personnel for scoops if they should happen to let that detail get out.
It is sad to see that Microsoft, so eager to stomp on the faults of others, is so shy about monumental failures on their part, failures that cost others millions. Needless to say, the Windows trading system at the LSE was eventually replaced by a more reliable system running on Linux.
Microsoft is no longer dominant in the computing space as Windows is unable to dominate over free Linux and even non-free UNIX. Yes, there are still plenty of shops that run Windows, but the biggest shops are not using Windows Servers. Google, eBay and Amazon to name a few, don't use Windows on their servers. If they tried, Microsoft would simply raise their license fees to squelch a potential competitor out of business.
Microsoft is also no longer dominant in consumer computing devices and has been losing relevance since about 1995. The PC market is shrinking in favor of tablets and smartphones. Android, which also runs on Linux, owns 80% of the smartphone market. As a result of the shifts in the market, it is now estimated that Windows runs on a mere 20% of all network connected devices.
Perhaps reporters will find fewer inhibitions to reporting the failures of Windows in major service interruption events now that Microsoft no longer dominates over everyone else. Honest and complete reporting will allow businesses and consumers to make more informed choices about the software they wish to run on their computers.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Transparency is a feature, not a bug
There is an escalating struggle between governments around the world and the people they serve. It is a struggle over the right to privacy online. It's important to note from the git-go that there is no such thing as privacy online. Everything we do that is public is permanent until that resource is shut down. Once knowledge is made public, it propagates quickly as far as people are willing to share it.
Governments have been happy to collect this information, you know, in case one of the people they serve turns out to be a terrorist or a political opponent. But governments have not been happy, much less enthusiastic to share with us how the information they collect is shared and interpreted. Our executive branch has made wild interpretations of the laws they are supposed to carry out that have run far afield of the intent of Congress.
To counter this intrusion on privacy, businesses and their customers are becoming familiar with encryption. It is not what we want to do, but if we want privacy, encryption is the way to go. But encryption is not enough.
What code are you running on your computer? Do you know what it does? If you're not a programmer, that's OK. The programmers know what it does. Some programmers will tell you, and others will not. I'm going to make a very clear distinction here to help you understand this better. Most people use Windows. It is well documented that Microsoft has built back-doors in Windows for governments so that they can access a computer remotely. This is not so well known for Apple products, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did that, too.
They can do this because the products they sell are closed source products. If you want privacy, you might consider using open source products. This is a very important distinction, but it may require some explaining so that you can understand it.
All software is written by humans. Software is complicated and cumbersome to write, so humans have devised tools to make it easier to write software. The humans who created computers know that computers understand machine language, you know, 1s and 0s. This is a language that humans can understand, but it's not very easy to read. Humans started programming computers with 1s and 0s.
So humans came up with assembly language. Less complicated, easier to read than 1s and 0s, but still very difficult to use. Assembly is specific to one processor, too. To make things easier for themselves and, it turns out, for others, programmers created programming languages that can be compiled into machine code that machines understand. The most famous example is that of the work of a group of programmers at ATT in 1969 to create UNIX.
All programs are written in human readable code. The human readable code is not understood by machines, so we use another program called a compiler to convert the human readable code to machine code. When humans write code, they include comments in their code to remind them of what the code does. Good programmers document their code so that others can support and maintain the same code. This makes it easy to share the code. When the code is compiled, the comments are stripped out by the compiler so that only executing code remains.
Once the code is compiled into machine code, humans cannot read it. It is possible to decompile the code, but the comments cannot be recovered because they were stripped out during compilation.
So here is the difference that I'm driving at: Windows is closed source. You don't get access to the source code. Even if you could decompile the source code, you don't get the comments, making the code very hard to read, and you violate the terms of the license for Windows. Yes, the license prohibits you from decompiling Windows to source code.
With Linux and open source software, you get access to the source code. Most of us are not programmers so we can't read the code. But someone out there can. And they are checking it to make sure there are no back doors. Even if someone tried to sneak a back door in, it's hard to get it passed the group of humans who maintain free and open source software.
If you really want privacy, you're not going to get it with an operating system built by Apple or Microsoft. Android is open source. Android runs on Linux and Linux is open source, too. Anyone can look at the code to see what it's doing. Granted, Google and others (such as Samsung, Motorola, LG, etc.) who use Android in phones add a lot of stuff that we can't see, but it's a lot better than Windows or Mac in terms of privacy.
If you wanted to, you can use something like Cyanogen Mod, a free version of Android to run on your phone. Then you'd have a much better idea of how much of your data is private.
At home, if you wanted more privacy on your computer, you could use Linux. I happen to like Ubuntu Gnome and suggest it to anyone who wants to try it. There are many flavors of Linux available called "distributions" or "distros", so you can always find a version that suits you best.
Notice that I use the phrase, "more privacy" in the last paragraph. That is because many of us use Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and so on. For complete privacy, don't use those services.
But we need community and we need to share information to be a part of a community. For now, take note that governments around the world are nervous. They are reading what we're writing and sharing. They don't want *us* banding together to form a new government that makes more sense, is nicer to the people they serve, and gets things done. They have been so busy serving the 1%, that they forgot about the rest of us.
In open source software, transparency is a feature, not a bug. Governments would do well to follow the example of open source software. While open source software projects never forget that they are there to serve others, using open source software for the freedom it provides is a way to remind governments that they serve others, too.
Governments have been happy to collect this information, you know, in case one of the people they serve turns out to be a terrorist or a political opponent. But governments have not been happy, much less enthusiastic to share with us how the information they collect is shared and interpreted. Our executive branch has made wild interpretations of the laws they are supposed to carry out that have run far afield of the intent of Congress.
To counter this intrusion on privacy, businesses and their customers are becoming familiar with encryption. It is not what we want to do, but if we want privacy, encryption is the way to go. But encryption is not enough.
What code are you running on your computer? Do you know what it does? If you're not a programmer, that's OK. The programmers know what it does. Some programmers will tell you, and others will not. I'm going to make a very clear distinction here to help you understand this better. Most people use Windows. It is well documented that Microsoft has built back-doors in Windows for governments so that they can access a computer remotely. This is not so well known for Apple products, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did that, too.
They can do this because the products they sell are closed source products. If you want privacy, you might consider using open source products. This is a very important distinction, but it may require some explaining so that you can understand it.
All software is written by humans. Software is complicated and cumbersome to write, so humans have devised tools to make it easier to write software. The humans who created computers know that computers understand machine language, you know, 1s and 0s. This is a language that humans can understand, but it's not very easy to read. Humans started programming computers with 1s and 0s.
So humans came up with assembly language. Less complicated, easier to read than 1s and 0s, but still very difficult to use. Assembly is specific to one processor, too. To make things easier for themselves and, it turns out, for others, programmers created programming languages that can be compiled into machine code that machines understand. The most famous example is that of the work of a group of programmers at ATT in 1969 to create UNIX.
All programs are written in human readable code. The human readable code is not understood by machines, so we use another program called a compiler to convert the human readable code to machine code. When humans write code, they include comments in their code to remind them of what the code does. Good programmers document their code so that others can support and maintain the same code. This makes it easy to share the code. When the code is compiled, the comments are stripped out by the compiler so that only executing code remains.
Once the code is compiled into machine code, humans cannot read it. It is possible to decompile the code, but the comments cannot be recovered because they were stripped out during compilation.
So here is the difference that I'm driving at: Windows is closed source. You don't get access to the source code. Even if you could decompile the source code, you don't get the comments, making the code very hard to read, and you violate the terms of the license for Windows. Yes, the license prohibits you from decompiling Windows to source code.
With Linux and open source software, you get access to the source code. Most of us are not programmers so we can't read the code. But someone out there can. And they are checking it to make sure there are no back doors. Even if someone tried to sneak a back door in, it's hard to get it passed the group of humans who maintain free and open source software.
If you really want privacy, you're not going to get it with an operating system built by Apple or Microsoft. Android is open source. Android runs on Linux and Linux is open source, too. Anyone can look at the code to see what it's doing. Granted, Google and others (such as Samsung, Motorola, LG, etc.) who use Android in phones add a lot of stuff that we can't see, but it's a lot better than Windows or Mac in terms of privacy.
If you wanted to, you can use something like Cyanogen Mod, a free version of Android to run on your phone. Then you'd have a much better idea of how much of your data is private.
At home, if you wanted more privacy on your computer, you could use Linux. I happen to like Ubuntu Gnome and suggest it to anyone who wants to try it. There are many flavors of Linux available called "distributions" or "distros", so you can always find a version that suits you best.
Notice that I use the phrase, "more privacy" in the last paragraph. That is because many of us use Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and so on. For complete privacy, don't use those services.
But we need community and we need to share information to be a part of a community. For now, take note that governments around the world are nervous. They are reading what we're writing and sharing. They don't want *us* banding together to form a new government that makes more sense, is nicer to the people they serve, and gets things done. They have been so busy serving the 1%, that they forgot about the rest of us.
In open source software, transparency is a feature, not a bug. Governments would do well to follow the example of open source software. While open source software projects never forget that they are there to serve others, using open source software for the freedom it provides is a way to remind governments that they serve others, too.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Howto: Recovery from a Windows virus
Over the weekend, I was called into service to help a relative. Her machine had been infected with a virus and she didn't have the skills to clear it up, so she called me. I'm happy to help and am quite capable of helping. I've been imaging computers for more than 14 years.
I have no experience with virus removal and I don't think I need it. Here's the reason why: viruses are unpredictable. Once infected, there is no way of knowing for certain that the virus is gone. I know this from reading over the years how virus writers cover their tracks, find unique hiding places to evade detection and prepare to re-install again on the next boot.
There is a story about Steve Ballmer and viruses, and no, this isn't about his love for Linux. His neighbor came to him with a computer one day. The computer was very slow and the neighbor asked Ballmer if he could repair the computer. Ballmer took the computer in and spent a couple of days trying to clean it up. Then he surrendered the computer to his IT staff and asked them to clean it up. But there was no possible way to clean it up as there were hundreds of viruses on the system.
So I began in earnest with a plan to help restore my relative's computer:
I have no experience with virus removal and I don't think I need it. Here's the reason why: viruses are unpredictable. Once infected, there is no way of knowing for certain that the virus is gone. I know this from reading over the years how virus writers cover their tracks, find unique hiding places to evade detection and prepare to re-install again on the next boot.
There is a story about Steve Ballmer and viruses, and no, this isn't about his love for Linux. His neighbor came to him with a computer one day. The computer was very slow and the neighbor asked Ballmer if he could repair the computer. Ballmer took the computer in and spent a couple of days trying to clean it up. Then he surrendered the computer to his IT staff and asked them to clean it up. But there was no possible way to clean it up as there were hundreds of viruses on the system.
So I began in earnest with a plan to help restore my relative's computer:
- Backup the data.
- Wipe the computer.
- Install Windows.
- Run updates until there are no more.
- Install Office.
- Run updates until there are no more.
- Install antivirus.
- Run updates until there are no more.
- Restore personal data.
- Image the disk so that we don't have to do this again.
There is a general rule of thumb I follow with any suspect machine. When backing up personal data, NEVER use the host operating system to do the backup. The reason for this is simple: viruses can infect USB drives. To backup the files, I always use a Linux live CD like Ubuntu Gnome, or Knoppix Live CD. This way, I can safely copy the files to another disk.
Once the backup of personal data is done, I'm ready for the next step: wiping the disk. Viruses can hide almost anywhere on a disk. But they can't live on it without structure. Structure on the disk is the file system and the partition table. Viruses have been found in the partition table, the file system table and in the boot sector of a hard drive. The partition table tells the hardware where to find data on the disk. The file system tells the operating system where to find files. Installing Windows again with the partition table, boot sector and file system intact is a big NO-NO. Wipe them out and the virus has no other place to hide.
Wiping the hard disk is not that hard to do. Boot the computer with Knoppix to get started. I use Knoppix because unlike Ubuntu, Knoppix gives me ready access to the root account and I can run the shred command from there. Once Knoppix is loaded, l open a command line and type the following commands:
su - (this makes me root)
shred -n3 -z -v /dev/sda (this command wipes the hard drive)
The su - command takes me right to root without a password. The shred command will write random 0s and 1s from the beginning of the hard drive to the end. For re-installs, I only do one partial pass, but the command above is what I'd use to wipe a hard drive clean before letting anyone else have it. To deal with the virus, I let the shred process run over a couple of gigabytes of space for good measure, then I'm done and can move on to the next step, installing Windows XP.
Some of you may already be familiar with this part. I've done this many times, more than I wish to recount. But it needs to be done here. So I boot to a Windows XP installation CD. I learned the hard way that it's important to disconnect all other external media from the machine during the boot process. By mistake, I did that and Windows proceeded to install on drive E. No, it didn't erase my external drive. I had disconnected that before the boot process was complete. But the installation program did assign the letter E to the boot disk in the computer. I didn't realize this until it was too late and had to start over again.
The next time I started the install, I verified that the boot drive was assigned letter C and allowed it to proceed. About 40 minutes later, Windows XP was installed.
This was a Dell machine and the owner had saved all of the disks, so I could easily install all of the drivers. I started with chipset, video, audio and saved the network for last. Once the network drivers were installed, I began testing the network.
For some reason, Comcast does something funny with DNS and it just doesn't work. So I use Google DNS (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4) to ensure that the network adapter can see the internet.
Now I'm ready to run updates. But they don't work and I'm not sure why. I recall that Windows XP Service Pack 2 is no longer supported. I download and install Service Pack 3. Run updates again and they still don't work. I do some research from my phone to discover a tool offered by Microsoft to solve this problem. But when I navigate to the page hosting that tool with Internet Explorer 6, I am invited to install Internet Explorer 8. I download that and install it.
Now Windows Update works. I run updates for about an hour. There were 121 updates to download and install. I reboot. I run Windows Update again, and again with a few reboots, until no more updates are available.
Then I install Microsoft Office. Again, I run Windows Updates until there are no more available. I have to reboot here, too.
At this point, I'd like to point out a contrast between Windows and Linux. With Windows, I spent more than two hours updating an installation from CD. With Linux, this would not happen. With Linux, after running updates just once after an installation from CD, all of the updates are complete. With Windows 7, the update times are shorter, but they will grow longer over the years. With Linux, there is no need to install years of updates to the operating system. The developers keep it up to date.
Now that Windows and Office are installed, it's time for the antivirus. My relative has paid for Norton Antivirus, so I'm going to install that. The install is uneventful. Everything works fine. I see that Norton AV has changed a lot. They've gone black for that bad-ass look. I run updates until there are no more available.
Now I use Norton to scan the files I recovered from the computer before re-installing Windows. I plug in the external hard drive and run a scan. It's clean so I can restore the files to her user profile.
Now it's time for the image. I don't want to lose all of my hard work so I run an image of the computer to an external hard disk, the same one I used to store the data I recovered data from the computer before. I like to use Clonezilla. It's very reliable and it's open source software. In less than 20 minutes, the image process is complete and I have a bit for bit image of the computer.
If there is another virus, I can use this image to restore all that work from before with much less effort since it's been captured in the image.
This time, though. The odds of another virus have been slimmed down. Previously, my relative had been running her computer as a local administrator of her computer. This means that she has full run of the computer. Administrator rights means, you can install software, hardware or even damage your computer with no protest from the operating system.
If you're running as admin on your computer and you come into contact with a virus, you won't know that your computer has been infected. Most viruses install silently, without notice. The virus has all the rights you have. Even if you have antivirus installed, the antivirus software won't stop you from clicking "I agree" to install a virus on the computer.
For this install, my relative will now run her computer as a normal user and use the admin account to install software or hardware. 95% of the threats to Windows XP have no power unless you/re an admin. That's a huge decrease in risk.
So that's how I like to install Windows after a virus infection. I use the nuclear option against the virus and re-install Windows. If you like this article, please share it with your friends and leave a comment below.
Monday, July 29, 2013
The NSA's contempt for Freedom of Expression
It is noteworthy to see that the man I voted for to be president is so persistent and determined to eliminate whistleblowers. Whistleblowers are people who uncover corruption in government and take it to the press. To see Obama now, with the help of Congress, pursuing Edward Snowden with so much energy and determination, informs us that we don't really know the man we elected in 2008. It seems that his promise to protect whistleblowers doesn't mean much now.
There was much that I liked about Obama when I voted for him. Compared to John McCain, who appeared ready and willing to continue fighting two wars, Obama was a better man. But I had no clue that Obama would turn against the people by defending the NSA, their hoovering of personal information at every opportunity and making secret interpretations of law. I am reminded of a song by the Who, "We Won't Get Fooled Again".
Perhaps Obama was indeed idealistic during his run for president. Perhaps his hands are tied and he must do as he is told, unable to debate the other side of the story - the People's side. The People are not criminals. Most of us have committed no crime, have no plans to do so, and happen to enjoy living here in the United States.
This unfettered contempt for whistleblowers is also contempt for freedom of expression, a right protected by the First Amendment to our Constitution. This freedom is what allowed Obama to be elected. This freedom allows us to have elections in the first place. It is the first freedom that is guaranteed by our Constitution.
Yet, Obama's NSA insists on collecting call data on all calls to and from all Americans without a warrant, a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Who are these people, anyway? What do they hope to gain?
Obama's NSA does not represent the will of the majority of Americans. Chris Christie can moan and complain all he wants about the view he had of the twin towers burning during the 9/11 disaster. But nothing, nothing at all, can justify the violation of our rights for a little (more) security.
No, Obama's NSA doesn't represent *us*. It is a representation of the fear and loathing that exists in Lesterland. Lesterland is a fictional representation of our country provided as analogy courtesy of Larry Lessig, a prominent figure in the Free Software Movement, and a lawyer. Lesterland is a place where the people who get elected to high office are selected by not the 1%, but the 0.05% of the People. They are wealthy enough to fund 60% of the costs of running for high office across our country. These are the people who are calling the shots, choosing the people who get to run for office, and egging on the NSA to collect anything and everything they think they can store.
These are the people who want the NSA to make secret interpretations of the law so that they can justify their intelligence gathering. Sure, they may have a laudable intention. Sure, they want to help us and to prevent another terrorist attack. I get that.
But there is no telling what that information can be used for. I don't trust the NSA to be able to keep that information secure for one. Two, insiders who can buy access to the information collected by the NSA can use that information against their adversaries. The 0.05% have enough money and resources to gain access to that information even if such access were illegal. And if they were caught, they have the money to pay for legal representation that would get them cleared without public humiliation much less a trial or detention.
Even if it might be a good idea to collect information as the NSA does now, it is an enormous and dangerous concentration of power. The members of Congress who seek to limit the power of the NSA may already have this in mind. I say go for it if you can do it. But the cards are now stacked against you.
Edward Snowden is no enemy of the state as far as the People are concerned. He has informed us of the contempt that Obama's NSA has for the law. Those who are in power now have been embarrassed by Snowden and they seek retribution for his act of exposing the contempt that the powerful have for the rest of us. That is the real reason for pursuing Snowden to the ends of the Earth.
There was much that I liked about Obama when I voted for him. Compared to John McCain, who appeared ready and willing to continue fighting two wars, Obama was a better man. But I had no clue that Obama would turn against the people by defending the NSA, their hoovering of personal information at every opportunity and making secret interpretations of law. I am reminded of a song by the Who, "We Won't Get Fooled Again".
Perhaps Obama was indeed idealistic during his run for president. Perhaps his hands are tied and he must do as he is told, unable to debate the other side of the story - the People's side. The People are not criminals. Most of us have committed no crime, have no plans to do so, and happen to enjoy living here in the United States.
This unfettered contempt for whistleblowers is also contempt for freedom of expression, a right protected by the First Amendment to our Constitution. This freedom is what allowed Obama to be elected. This freedom allows us to have elections in the first place. It is the first freedom that is guaranteed by our Constitution.
Yet, Obama's NSA insists on collecting call data on all calls to and from all Americans without a warrant, a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Who are these people, anyway? What do they hope to gain?
Obama's NSA does not represent the will of the majority of Americans. Chris Christie can moan and complain all he wants about the view he had of the twin towers burning during the 9/11 disaster. But nothing, nothing at all, can justify the violation of our rights for a little (more) security.
No, Obama's NSA doesn't represent *us*. It is a representation of the fear and loathing that exists in Lesterland. Lesterland is a fictional representation of our country provided as analogy courtesy of Larry Lessig, a prominent figure in the Free Software Movement, and a lawyer. Lesterland is a place where the people who get elected to high office are selected by not the 1%, but the 0.05% of the People. They are wealthy enough to fund 60% of the costs of running for high office across our country. These are the people who are calling the shots, choosing the people who get to run for office, and egging on the NSA to collect anything and everything they think they can store.
These are the people who want the NSA to make secret interpretations of the law so that they can justify their intelligence gathering. Sure, they may have a laudable intention. Sure, they want to help us and to prevent another terrorist attack. I get that.
But there is no telling what that information can be used for. I don't trust the NSA to be able to keep that information secure for one. Two, insiders who can buy access to the information collected by the NSA can use that information against their adversaries. The 0.05% have enough money and resources to gain access to that information even if such access were illegal. And if they were caught, they have the money to pay for legal representation that would get them cleared without public humiliation much less a trial or detention.
Even if it might be a good idea to collect information as the NSA does now, it is an enormous and dangerous concentration of power. The members of Congress who seek to limit the power of the NSA may already have this in mind. I say go for it if you can do it. But the cards are now stacked against you.
Edward Snowden is no enemy of the state as far as the People are concerned. He has informed us of the contempt that Obama's NSA has for the law. Those who are in power now have been embarrassed by Snowden and they seek retribution for his act of exposing the contempt that the powerful have for the rest of us. That is the real reason for pursuing Snowden to the ends of the Earth.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Rediscovering my music collection, the digital way
I really enjoy listening to music. I have a fairly decent collection of about 7700 tracks in more than 600 compilations. I know these compilations as "albums". You know, those collections of songs we used to buy on vinyl?
When vinyl gave way to CDs, I let go of vinyl and carried on my collection with CDs. CDs were the perfect format for music for me. Long lasting, consistent playback in a physical format that I can hold and look at.
I like to listen to albums on CD. Albums were a collection of songs performed and compiled to give the listener a complete sense of an artist's state of mind. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is by far, the best example of what I mean by this. Each song can stand on it's own, as John Lennon has fiercely defended when asked about them, insisting it was not a "concept" album. Yet, the songs all seem to lend a common theme. I find this in many CDs that I have listened to over the years and so, I prefer to listen to the entire compilation to gain the sense of depth an artist is expressing with his music.
In the past, my tendency was to just play my favorites. Some would just naturally be played more often. I was playing favorites with my music collection and rightly so. But I discovered that I was beginning to tire of this. So I turned to Pandora.com, Groove Salad and Lush on Somafm.com. These music services gave me a sense of random, unpredictable music selections within the same genre that I had come to enjoy on the radio, much further in the past.
There is something about listening to a music service like Pandora or Somafm that I really like. I like hearing a good set of tracks selected by someone else, like in an album. I like the random and unpredictable selection because I don't have to think about what to queue up next.
After a while, although I really like streaming music services, i want to listen to my own music collection again. My listening experience at home tends to be very consistent. Some sort of rock music during workouts and quiet or lounge electronic music at all other times in consideration of my family. Quiet, non-intrusive music is particularly necessary in the early morning hours. I'm a morning person, I admit it. I just naturally rise at 4 or 5 in the morning, without an alarm clock. No coffee needed. Only warm water with lemon juice and a little honey. During that time, letting other people sleep is important so that I can write.
I've built a nice quiet channel on Pandora for that quiet music I like to play while writing. I use Pandora because I can play quiet music without thinking about it. My only problem with this service is that from time to time, Pandora will play a forgotten hit from Motown, without any prompting. I have no idea why this happens and continues to happen when I've been rejecting every one of those songs on this channel.
To send a clear message to their servers at Pandora, I reject the Motown songs I don't want on this channel and then close the browser tab so that they know I'm displeased. I sometimes wonder if maybe they're just throwing an irritating track in there to check and see if I'm still listening. Could be.
Even though I like the streaming services, I still miss my own music. I have songs in my collection that I haven't heard in years and I want to know my music collection again. At home, I tend to play what I remember most, what I think is palatable to my wife and what is safe for my baby's sensitive ears. I can't just go nuts with the Devo or Del Amitri. Although I will play a good set of Rush tunes with the room cleared.
So I came up with a solution enabled by Google Play Music. Google Play Music allows me to stream my entire collection of music from any Android device, or a computer with a browser, assuming that an internet connection exists. To use Google Play Music, I install an application from Google that scans my music collection and then uploads the collection to their servers. Yes, they do support Linux, and they do so very nicely - that is yet another reason I like Google. Here's the most interesting part: the limit is 20,000 tracks. Never mind that some of my tracks are more than an hour long. Some of my tracks are in the FLAC format, too. Bigger, but better audio quality. The per track limit is 300 megabytes.
Once I uploaded my music to Google Play Music, I realized that with all my albums in the cloud, I could do something that I hadn't ever done before. I could play my albums from A-Z. This is better in my mind than playing every artist in sequence, A-Z. Playing alphabetically by album title rather than band title gives me just the right amount of randomness while keeping the themes of each album intact. It requires a little manual effort, but once started, it's easy to keep going.
With Google Play Music, I can stream my collection through my phone in my car every day. My commutes are pretty short, so I only get to hear maybe two or three songs each day. But that is just enough to keep it interesting. For longer errands that I run on the weekends, I hear a bit more. Besides, some of the music in my collection just doesn't play well around the house in consideration of others. So driving alone in the car is the best time for me to listen to that music.
I've been doing this for more than a month now and I'm just nearing the end of album titles that start with the letter A. Already, I've heard tracks I haven't played in years, or tracks that I didn't even remember that I had. It's been quite a treat to run through them this way. At this rate, I should finish in a couple of years.
When vinyl gave way to CDs, I let go of vinyl and carried on my collection with CDs. CDs were the perfect format for music for me. Long lasting, consistent playback in a physical format that I can hold and look at.
I like to listen to albums on CD. Albums were a collection of songs performed and compiled to give the listener a complete sense of an artist's state of mind. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is by far, the best example of what I mean by this. Each song can stand on it's own, as John Lennon has fiercely defended when asked about them, insisting it was not a "concept" album. Yet, the songs all seem to lend a common theme. I find this in many CDs that I have listened to over the years and so, I prefer to listen to the entire compilation to gain the sense of depth an artist is expressing with his music.
In the past, my tendency was to just play my favorites. Some would just naturally be played more often. I was playing favorites with my music collection and rightly so. But I discovered that I was beginning to tire of this. So I turned to Pandora.com, Groove Salad and Lush on Somafm.com. These music services gave me a sense of random, unpredictable music selections within the same genre that I had come to enjoy on the radio, much further in the past.
There is something about listening to a music service like Pandora or Somafm that I really like. I like hearing a good set of tracks selected by someone else, like in an album. I like the random and unpredictable selection because I don't have to think about what to queue up next.
After a while, although I really like streaming music services, i want to listen to my own music collection again. My listening experience at home tends to be very consistent. Some sort of rock music during workouts and quiet or lounge electronic music at all other times in consideration of my family. Quiet, non-intrusive music is particularly necessary in the early morning hours. I'm a morning person, I admit it. I just naturally rise at 4 or 5 in the morning, without an alarm clock. No coffee needed. Only warm water with lemon juice and a little honey. During that time, letting other people sleep is important so that I can write.
I've built a nice quiet channel on Pandora for that quiet music I like to play while writing. I use Pandora because I can play quiet music without thinking about it. My only problem with this service is that from time to time, Pandora will play a forgotten hit from Motown, without any prompting. I have no idea why this happens and continues to happen when I've been rejecting every one of those songs on this channel.
To send a clear message to their servers at Pandora, I reject the Motown songs I don't want on this channel and then close the browser tab so that they know I'm displeased. I sometimes wonder if maybe they're just throwing an irritating track in there to check and see if I'm still listening. Could be.
Even though I like the streaming services, I still miss my own music. I have songs in my collection that I haven't heard in years and I want to know my music collection again. At home, I tend to play what I remember most, what I think is palatable to my wife and what is safe for my baby's sensitive ears. I can't just go nuts with the Devo or Del Amitri. Although I will play a good set of Rush tunes with the room cleared.
So I came up with a solution enabled by Google Play Music. Google Play Music allows me to stream my entire collection of music from any Android device, or a computer with a browser, assuming that an internet connection exists. To use Google Play Music, I install an application from Google that scans my music collection and then uploads the collection to their servers. Yes, they do support Linux, and they do so very nicely - that is yet another reason I like Google. Here's the most interesting part: the limit is 20,000 tracks. Never mind that some of my tracks are more than an hour long. Some of my tracks are in the FLAC format, too. Bigger, but better audio quality. The per track limit is 300 megabytes.
Once I uploaded my music to Google Play Music, I realized that with all my albums in the cloud, I could do something that I hadn't ever done before. I could play my albums from A-Z. This is better in my mind than playing every artist in sequence, A-Z. Playing alphabetically by album title rather than band title gives me just the right amount of randomness while keeping the themes of each album intact. It requires a little manual effort, but once started, it's easy to keep going.
With Google Play Music, I can stream my collection through my phone in my car every day. My commutes are pretty short, so I only get to hear maybe two or three songs each day. But that is just enough to keep it interesting. For longer errands that I run on the weekends, I hear a bit more. Besides, some of the music in my collection just doesn't play well around the house in consideration of others. So driving alone in the car is the best time for me to listen to that music.
I've been doing this for more than a month now and I'm just nearing the end of album titles that start with the letter A. Already, I've heard tracks I haven't played in years, or tracks that I didn't even remember that I had. It's been quite a treat to run through them this way. At this rate, I should finish in a couple of years.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Reading in the Digital Age
I've been using the internet since about 1994. Since that time, I've noticed a gradual transition in my choices and manner of reading. I've found that with use of the internet, the activity of reading has been transformed from a rather passive activity to something more active.
I used to read lots of books before the dawn of the digital age. Many of you may not remember a time when there was no web. But I remember those days well. The days of pagers, pay phones and when phones had a dial on them. You know, where you put your finger in a dial for the number you want and turn the dial. Yeah, those days.
My first modem connected to my Amiga 500 and GEnie. I also dialed into a number of BBSs. That's Bulletin Board System for those who don't remember. Back then, I played a lot of interactive games with characters represented by ANSI text. That is where the wedge between me and books started. The games were addictive and time consuming. Chatting and gaming were relative constants for a number of years back then.
I didn't discover the web until I got an Apple Powerbook. Back then, the web was slow, still very much in its infancy. The World Wide Web was sometimes referred to as the World Wide Wait. But as I began to do research on Alta Vista, I slowly stopped reading books on a regular basis. I discovered other sources of information, sources that tended to stay fresh, up to date. I rather like that compared to the static nature of books.
Eventually, I succumbed (for about 10 years) to the Microsoft monopoly and bought a Windows laptop. I also bought a copy of Netscape to browse the web, not really understanding that I could use Internet Explorer for free. Back then, in some ways, computers were still confusing for me, but friends still asked me for help. I even coded my own web page and had a little fun with that.
I still read books, but not nearly as often as before. I clung to magazines for quite some time, namely, Car and Driver. God I loved that magazine. They made even boring cars interesting to read about.
But more and more, I was seeing news on the internet. I found blogs. I discovered that there were news sites that catered to my interests in science, technology and politics. At some point, I even dropped my subscription to Car and Driver because I spent so much time on the internet, that I didn't even have time for a magazine. This was a big change because I used to read every article in Car and Driver with each issue. Even if the subject was boring, I read it because their prose gave me inspiration to write.
As I grew a bit older, I noticed that reading books became a bit more difficult. I got bifocals. As an avid internet reader, I found ways to zoom the text, to make it bigger. That makes reading on a screen easier for me than reading on paper. Paper doesn't zoom like the humble web browser can.
Then there is the PDF. With PDF files, I can easily zoom the text or image in the electronic document in ways that I could not with paper. I can download entire books in PDFs. I gotta say that PDFs opened a whole new world of documents to me. I remember downloading my first forms from the IRS and just being amazed at the clarity of the document. But what I really loved about PDFs, is that no matter what operating system I'm on, PDFs will always print the same. Always.
The internet is fresh, constantly updated, a work in progress, documenting the constantly evolving collective consciousness of the human race. It is, in a manner of speaking, the greatest collection of information ever assembled by humans.
The internet is also a sort of river. I put a post on Twitter, and it goes down the river, like a bottle with a message in it. But everyone that follows me can see the bottle at the same time. On Facebook the experience is much the same. I post something and down it goes as posts from other people appear. Google+ also bears much the same experience, but with more scientists and geeks. They are all streams of consciousness for humanity.
It has been a fascinating ride, and I hope it continues, but I don't expect any part of it to remain the same for very long.
I used to read lots of books before the dawn of the digital age. Many of you may not remember a time when there was no web. But I remember those days well. The days of pagers, pay phones and when phones had a dial on them. You know, where you put your finger in a dial for the number you want and turn the dial. Yeah, those days.
My first modem connected to my Amiga 500 and GEnie. I also dialed into a number of BBSs. That's Bulletin Board System for those who don't remember. Back then, I played a lot of interactive games with characters represented by ANSI text. That is where the wedge between me and books started. The games were addictive and time consuming. Chatting and gaming were relative constants for a number of years back then.
I didn't discover the web until I got an Apple Powerbook. Back then, the web was slow, still very much in its infancy. The World Wide Web was sometimes referred to as the World Wide Wait. But as I began to do research on Alta Vista, I slowly stopped reading books on a regular basis. I discovered other sources of information, sources that tended to stay fresh, up to date. I rather like that compared to the static nature of books.
Eventually, I succumbed (for about 10 years) to the Microsoft monopoly and bought a Windows laptop. I also bought a copy of Netscape to browse the web, not really understanding that I could use Internet Explorer for free. Back then, in some ways, computers were still confusing for me, but friends still asked me for help. I even coded my own web page and had a little fun with that.
I still read books, but not nearly as often as before. I clung to magazines for quite some time, namely, Car and Driver. God I loved that magazine. They made even boring cars interesting to read about.
But more and more, I was seeing news on the internet. I found blogs. I discovered that there were news sites that catered to my interests in science, technology and politics. At some point, I even dropped my subscription to Car and Driver because I spent so much time on the internet, that I didn't even have time for a magazine. This was a big change because I used to read every article in Car and Driver with each issue. Even if the subject was boring, I read it because their prose gave me inspiration to write.
As I grew a bit older, I noticed that reading books became a bit more difficult. I got bifocals. As an avid internet reader, I found ways to zoom the text, to make it bigger. That makes reading on a screen easier for me than reading on paper. Paper doesn't zoom like the humble web browser can.
Then there is the PDF. With PDF files, I can easily zoom the text or image in the electronic document in ways that I could not with paper. I can download entire books in PDFs. I gotta say that PDFs opened a whole new world of documents to me. I remember downloading my first forms from the IRS and just being amazed at the clarity of the document. But what I really loved about PDFs, is that no matter what operating system I'm on, PDFs will always print the same. Always.
The internet is fresh, constantly updated, a work in progress, documenting the constantly evolving collective consciousness of the human race. It is, in a manner of speaking, the greatest collection of information ever assembled by humans.
The internet is also a sort of river. I put a post on Twitter, and it goes down the river, like a bottle with a message in it. But everyone that follows me can see the bottle at the same time. On Facebook the experience is much the same. I post something and down it goes as posts from other people appear. Google+ also bears much the same experience, but with more scientists and geeks. They are all streams of consciousness for humanity.
It has been a fascinating ride, and I hope it continues, but I don't expect any part of it to remain the same for very long.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Life, in a package
When we go shopping for groceries, most everything is in a nice, neat little package. The mayonnaise, the cereal, the vitamins, even the meat - it all comes in a convenient little package. When we go to the local electronics store, like Best Buy, we search for solutions to problems we didn't have before the technology we're planning to buy even existed. Those solutions also come in bigger, nice and neat packages.
The tendency to try to put everything into nice little packages is pervasive. Watch the evening news and see how very complex stories are wrapped up into 30-60 second soundbites. Watch the commercials and see how solutions to problems that many of us have, have been reduced to buying this or that product. Buy a car and feel better. Buy an expectorant and cough less. Buy a hair spray to get total control of your hair.
The reality often results in disappointment or, "buyer's remorse". First impressions from advertising set us up for expectations that may or may not be realistic. One commercial comes to mind, the Charmin commercial with the bears in the woods unable to "go" without a roll of Charmin. Of course, they feel much better, more secure knowing that there is a roll of Charmin nearby.
While the Charmin commercial troubles me, the fact that people who make buying decisions based on that commercial may also vote, troubles me more. A fantasy about toilet paper is not a sound basis upon which to make a purchasing decision. Oh, the bears are cute in a somewhat nauseating way, but do they really tip the purchasing decision in favor of Charmin? If so, is it really necessary for the NSA to collect phone records on all Americans?
We all make decisions based upon impressions, often combined with intuition. There is simply no way to know everything about something. As soon as you think you've got it nailed down, some smart-ass is going to show you something you didn't know about that thing. Or you'll discover it yourself in a moment of serendipity. Scientists show us stuff we didn't know all the time, and they do it very well. That's their job and I would be very disappointed if they stopped doing all that studying and discovering stuff.
With almost every decision, we have to weigh the cost of an error versus the cost of the time spent investigating the options available prior to making a decision. Should we read the entire credit card contract, or just sign it and get that shiny thing we wanted? Should we look into the health risks of genetically modified food or just hope that the FDA is right? Should we vote for a man who tells that a vote for him is a vote for change, or should we investigate the people who back him to see where his allegiances point to?
At the end of the day, the best we can hope for with each decision is that we made the right decision and that if not, we can hope that it wasn't a fatal error and that we live to learn from it.
The tendency to try to put everything into nice little packages is pervasive. Watch the evening news and see how very complex stories are wrapped up into 30-60 second soundbites. Watch the commercials and see how solutions to problems that many of us have, have been reduced to buying this or that product. Buy a car and feel better. Buy an expectorant and cough less. Buy a hair spray to get total control of your hair.
The reality often results in disappointment or, "buyer's remorse". First impressions from advertising set us up for expectations that may or may not be realistic. One commercial comes to mind, the Charmin commercial with the bears in the woods unable to "go" without a roll of Charmin. Of course, they feel much better, more secure knowing that there is a roll of Charmin nearby.
While the Charmin commercial troubles me, the fact that people who make buying decisions based on that commercial may also vote, troubles me more. A fantasy about toilet paper is not a sound basis upon which to make a purchasing decision. Oh, the bears are cute in a somewhat nauseating way, but do they really tip the purchasing decision in favor of Charmin? If so, is it really necessary for the NSA to collect phone records on all Americans?
We all make decisions based upon impressions, often combined with intuition. There is simply no way to know everything about something. As soon as you think you've got it nailed down, some smart-ass is going to show you something you didn't know about that thing. Or you'll discover it yourself in a moment of serendipity. Scientists show us stuff we didn't know all the time, and they do it very well. That's their job and I would be very disappointed if they stopped doing all that studying and discovering stuff.
With almost every decision, we have to weigh the cost of an error versus the cost of the time spent investigating the options available prior to making a decision. Should we read the entire credit card contract, or just sign it and get that shiny thing we wanted? Should we look into the health risks of genetically modified food or just hope that the FDA is right? Should we vote for a man who tells that a vote for him is a vote for change, or should we investigate the people who back him to see where his allegiances point to?
At the end of the day, the best we can hope for with each decision is that we made the right decision and that if not, we can hope that it wasn't a fatal error and that we live to learn from it.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Who wants to run a million servers?
In recent tech news, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has bragged announced that they are now running more than a million servers. More than a million? Really? That's a lot of Windows servers to maintain, man. How do you keep them all up to date? What if an update fails to install as so often does on Windows? Who's gonna fix it?
Google, on the other hand doesn't make any announcements about how many servers they are running. I've searched around and found estimates, but no hard and fast numbers. The best estimates that I can find are ~900,000 (as of late 2011) and somewhere between 1 and 2 million (as of early 2012, with a projection suggesting 2.3 million by 2013). I don't think that Google needs to impress us with the number of servers they run. However, they do need to impress us with fast search results.
Google and Microsoft offer a study in contrasts. Google publishes general purpose best practices such as hard disk failure statistics as well as a wealth of other experience for others to follow should they choose to. Microsoft publishes best practices for all their servers, too. But that is just for Microsoft software. Google is publishing best practices for hardware and software. Google is also agnostic about what you run on your hardware. Their only hope is that you will use Google search.
After looking at pictures of Google's data centers, I'd say that Google has plenty of experience to lend. Everything is color-coded, organized, clean and efficiently run.
Does Microsoft's announcement tell us anything about Microsoft? Could Microsoft be trying to convince us that they are relevant to the internet? As if they ever were?
One thing that we know for sure, is that Google is serving at least 25% of all internet traffic. Even Windows Updates on Patch Tuesday doesn't even come close to that. The only organization that clearly surpasses Google in traffic handling is Netflix with an estimated 30% of traffic. Well, OK, maybe the NSA can top Google.
I suspect that Microsoft really needs a million severs to get their job done since they are running Windows. It is quite possible that the same job could be done with much less hardware running Linux. But Microsoft makes a special effort to ensure that their products won't run on Linux. That may change, but the wind says "no".
One philosophical difference between Google and Microsoft concerns freedom. Google uses free software, contributes code to free software projects and makes no efforts to restrict your ability to use the hardware Google sells. For example, Google has published instructions for how to make a copy of the hard disk in a Chromebook or Chromebox to an external drive. There is nothing stopping you from installing your favorite distribution of Linux on that hardware.
Microsoft, on the other hand, seems to have hijacked the development of UEFI, the new boot process for new computers that replaces the BIOS. UEFI is secured using a set of keys that at the start, only Microsoft had. Anyone wishing to distribute a version of Linux that would run with UEFI, had to negotiate with Microsoft to generate keys that would work. Microsoft just doesn't want people buying Windows machines and loading them up with Linux. For all we know, UEFI is just security theater.
I believe that this philosophical difference between Microsoft and Google defines their opportunities for success. While Google let's everyone know that they are free to use another service, or other software on their hardware, Microsoft has been busy using every technical and legal means to limit user options to Windows.
Microsoft needs a million servers to a fraction of the work that Google could with the same number of servers. Why? The restrictions imposed by Windows on its customers also work against Microsoft. Linux users like Google have access to the source code, can change it, learn from others and improve Linux. Microsoft could change the source code, but cannot learn how to improve it from others, they have to do it alone.
Microsoft has tried to hold everyone else down below them, but to do so, they have to stay down too. Until the internet came around, Microsoft has been largely successful at holding others down, because with the internet, choices are very limited or non-existent.
Google has promoted user freedom not just because they want to, but because doing so holds their own feet to the fire of their customers and spurs them to do better. If their engineers know that anyone could leave at anytime, they will work diligently to keep their customers. Our choices for search engines and other services are evidence of Google's determination to offer a better search experience with fewer servers per customer than Microsoft needs.
If Microsoft thinks that the number of servers they're running is an indication of their value as a vendor, they need only look to Google for the values customers are looking for.
Google, on the other hand doesn't make any announcements about how many servers they are running. I've searched around and found estimates, but no hard and fast numbers. The best estimates that I can find are ~900,000 (as of late 2011) and somewhere between 1 and 2 million (as of early 2012, with a projection suggesting 2.3 million by 2013). I don't think that Google needs to impress us with the number of servers they run. However, they do need to impress us with fast search results.
Google and Microsoft offer a study in contrasts. Google publishes general purpose best practices such as hard disk failure statistics as well as a wealth of other experience for others to follow should they choose to. Microsoft publishes best practices for all their servers, too. But that is just for Microsoft software. Google is publishing best practices for hardware and software. Google is also agnostic about what you run on your hardware. Their only hope is that you will use Google search.
After looking at pictures of Google's data centers, I'd say that Google has plenty of experience to lend. Everything is color-coded, organized, clean and efficiently run.
Does Microsoft's announcement tell us anything about Microsoft? Could Microsoft be trying to convince us that they are relevant to the internet? As if they ever were?
One thing that we know for sure, is that Google is serving at least 25% of all internet traffic. Even Windows Updates on Patch Tuesday doesn't even come close to that. The only organization that clearly surpasses Google in traffic handling is Netflix with an estimated 30% of traffic. Well, OK, maybe the NSA can top Google.
I suspect that Microsoft really needs a million severs to get their job done since they are running Windows. It is quite possible that the same job could be done with much less hardware running Linux. But Microsoft makes a special effort to ensure that their products won't run on Linux. That may change, but the wind says "no".
One philosophical difference between Google and Microsoft concerns freedom. Google uses free software, contributes code to free software projects and makes no efforts to restrict your ability to use the hardware Google sells. For example, Google has published instructions for how to make a copy of the hard disk in a Chromebook or Chromebox to an external drive. There is nothing stopping you from installing your favorite distribution of Linux on that hardware.
Microsoft, on the other hand, seems to have hijacked the development of UEFI, the new boot process for new computers that replaces the BIOS. UEFI is secured using a set of keys that at the start, only Microsoft had. Anyone wishing to distribute a version of Linux that would run with UEFI, had to negotiate with Microsoft to generate keys that would work. Microsoft just doesn't want people buying Windows machines and loading them up with Linux. For all we know, UEFI is just security theater.
I believe that this philosophical difference between Microsoft and Google defines their opportunities for success. While Google let's everyone know that they are free to use another service, or other software on their hardware, Microsoft has been busy using every technical and legal means to limit user options to Windows.
Microsoft needs a million servers to a fraction of the work that Google could with the same number of servers. Why? The restrictions imposed by Windows on its customers also work against Microsoft. Linux users like Google have access to the source code, can change it, learn from others and improve Linux. Microsoft could change the source code, but cannot learn how to improve it from others, they have to do it alone.
Microsoft has tried to hold everyone else down below them, but to do so, they have to stay down too. Until the internet came around, Microsoft has been largely successful at holding others down, because with the internet, choices are very limited or non-existent.
Google has promoted user freedom not just because they want to, but because doing so holds their own feet to the fire of their customers and spurs them to do better. If their engineers know that anyone could leave at anytime, they will work diligently to keep their customers. Our choices for search engines and other services are evidence of Google's determination to offer a better search experience with fewer servers per customer than Microsoft needs.
If Microsoft thinks that the number of servers they're running is an indication of their value as a vendor, they need only look to Google for the values customers are looking for.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
What were they called? "Microsoft"?
It seems that the numbers are in. The long, slow decline of Microsoft coincides very nicely with the rise of the internet and the numbers show that Microsoft is no longer relevant. If you're in high school and you're still planning a career on Windows, think again. Change course. Work on something that ends in "nix".
What ends in "nix"? UNIX, Linux, and there is FreeBSD, but that doesn't end in "nix". Any version of UNIX or Linux will do. Why? Because that is what runs the internet.
Every major player on the internet is running Linux or some other *nix. Google, eBay, Amazon, Godaddy, Facebook and the list goes on. The biggest web hosting service in the world, Bluehost, runs Linux.
Allow me to put this in historical perspective. I started out with a Commodore 64. A very interesting command line based computer that sold more than 16 million units during it's run. But I wanted something with a graphical user interface. The first version of Windows had been out since 1985, but I had seen that and I didn't want it.
So I got an Amiga 500 with a monitor and printer. That was my gift to myself for Christmas in 1988. It had the command line, but it also had a windowing interface that made it easy for me to run programs and create files. I used it for my accounting and word processing. It was a blast to own, behold and to use.
When Windows 95 came out and obliterated the competition with all their marketing, I still wanted choices. Microsoft, with their "take no prisoners" attitude, wiped out almost all of the choices for consumers. I didn't want to run Windows and I sure as hell didn't want to run a Mac.
But the Mac was my next computer in 1994 and that was the first computer I connected to the internet. I ran the Mac until 1997 when I bought my first Windows PC. It was a dog, but it worked. I connected it to the internet like the Mac before it. I did a lot of work on it, yet I still missed my Amiga.
In 2000 I got a new computer running Windows 2000. That was much better than Windows 95, and certainly more secure. Then in 2001, I discovered Red Hat Linux and played around with it on a spare computer. I even downloaded a few Linux boot CDs and played with them. But I had taken a college course in Linux where the instructor said that eventually, Windows would win out. As if *nix was dying. So I made a mistake and put my efforts into Windows. That was what they were running at work, so I needed to learn that.
In 2007, I rediscovered Linux, desperate for an escape from Windows and installed Ubuntu Linux on a spare computer. Eventually, that spare computer became my main computer and I never went back. I made an oath to myself that I would never use Windows in the house again. Alice, my wife, was still running Windows on her computer, but that was ok. If she wants to run Windows, I'm ok with that as long as we do no online banking with Windows.
In 2009, Alice said that when the antivirus expires, I can set her up with Linux. She don't really need Windows anymore. She just needed to do a little writing, browse the internet, check her email and chat with her friends on Yahoo. Sure enough, when the antivirus expired, I backed up her documents, wiped out Windows and installed Ubuntu for her, too. She just gets her work done and never really complains about it. She seems to like it, but she's not really a computer person like I am. She just wants it to work, and it does.
I can recall that one minor irritation of Linux was the way that my email program, Evolution, worked with my Palm Pilot based phone. I could never get it to work exactly right. When the first Android phone came out, I got the G1 as soon as I was eligible for an upgrade. That was the last link to the Windows PC for me. The G1 phone exchanges data directly with Google's servers. My contacts, calendar and emails were perfect on it. I still use an Android phone to this day. My does now, too.
There is a legend that quotes Bill Gates as follows: "The internet is a fad." It is legend because Gates actually recognized the power of the internet and wrote about that power in an email sent to every employee at Microsoft. Gates referred to that power as the "internet tidal wave". Contrast that with a very public statement that, "I see little commercial potential for the Internet for at least 10 years", in 1994, just before the release of Internet Explorer in Windows 95. Gates is such a sly dog, isn't he?
But somehow, Microsoft managed to miss that internet tidal wave. I believe I know why they missed it. The internet represents freedom. Freedom to learn, to build, to share and to earn. Microsoft doesn't represent freedom. They are fine if you use their development tools, and you don't compete with them. But if you do compete with them, your business will be ground into dust.
Linux was promoted as a free (as in freedom) alternative to proprietary operating systems. Linux is licensed under the GPL, the General Public License, a license that requires that the code be shared when improvements made to it are shared, too. It is the ultimate utility operating system. In order for Microsoft to maintain its monopoly, it has to eliminate freedom enough to prevent competitors from gaining an advantage. Microsoft fights that freedom, our freedom, every day when they fight Linux.
The numbers prove that, in the long run, Microsoft can't compete against freedom.
What ends in "nix"? UNIX, Linux, and there is FreeBSD, but that doesn't end in "nix". Any version of UNIX or Linux will do. Why? Because that is what runs the internet.
Every major player on the internet is running Linux or some other *nix. Google, eBay, Amazon, Godaddy, Facebook and the list goes on. The biggest web hosting service in the world, Bluehost, runs Linux.
Allow me to put this in historical perspective. I started out with a Commodore 64. A very interesting command line based computer that sold more than 16 million units during it's run. But I wanted something with a graphical user interface. The first version of Windows had been out since 1985, but I had seen that and I didn't want it.
So I got an Amiga 500 with a monitor and printer. That was my gift to myself for Christmas in 1988. It had the command line, but it also had a windowing interface that made it easy for me to run programs and create files. I used it for my accounting and word processing. It was a blast to own, behold and to use.
When Windows 95 came out and obliterated the competition with all their marketing, I still wanted choices. Microsoft, with their "take no prisoners" attitude, wiped out almost all of the choices for consumers. I didn't want to run Windows and I sure as hell didn't want to run a Mac.
But the Mac was my next computer in 1994 and that was the first computer I connected to the internet. I ran the Mac until 1997 when I bought my first Windows PC. It was a dog, but it worked. I connected it to the internet like the Mac before it. I did a lot of work on it, yet I still missed my Amiga.
In 2000 I got a new computer running Windows 2000. That was much better than Windows 95, and certainly more secure. Then in 2001, I discovered Red Hat Linux and played around with it on a spare computer. I even downloaded a few Linux boot CDs and played with them. But I had taken a college course in Linux where the instructor said that eventually, Windows would win out. As if *nix was dying. So I made a mistake and put my efforts into Windows. That was what they were running at work, so I needed to learn that.
In 2007, I rediscovered Linux, desperate for an escape from Windows and installed Ubuntu Linux on a spare computer. Eventually, that spare computer became my main computer and I never went back. I made an oath to myself that I would never use Windows in the house again. Alice, my wife, was still running Windows on her computer, but that was ok. If she wants to run Windows, I'm ok with that as long as we do no online banking with Windows.
In 2009, Alice said that when the antivirus expires, I can set her up with Linux. She don't really need Windows anymore. She just needed to do a little writing, browse the internet, check her email and chat with her friends on Yahoo. Sure enough, when the antivirus expired, I backed up her documents, wiped out Windows and installed Ubuntu for her, too. She just gets her work done and never really complains about it. She seems to like it, but she's not really a computer person like I am. She just wants it to work, and it does.
I can recall that one minor irritation of Linux was the way that my email program, Evolution, worked with my Palm Pilot based phone. I could never get it to work exactly right. When the first Android phone came out, I got the G1 as soon as I was eligible for an upgrade. That was the last link to the Windows PC for me. The G1 phone exchanges data directly with Google's servers. My contacts, calendar and emails were perfect on it. I still use an Android phone to this day. My does now, too.
There is a legend that quotes Bill Gates as follows: "The internet is a fad." It is legend because Gates actually recognized the power of the internet and wrote about that power in an email sent to every employee at Microsoft. Gates referred to that power as the "internet tidal wave". Contrast that with a very public statement that, "I see little commercial potential for the Internet for at least 10 years", in 1994, just before the release of Internet Explorer in Windows 95. Gates is such a sly dog, isn't he?
But somehow, Microsoft managed to miss that internet tidal wave. I believe I know why they missed it. The internet represents freedom. Freedom to learn, to build, to share and to earn. Microsoft doesn't represent freedom. They are fine if you use their development tools, and you don't compete with them. But if you do compete with them, your business will be ground into dust.
Linux was promoted as a free (as in freedom) alternative to proprietary operating systems. Linux is licensed under the GPL, the General Public License, a license that requires that the code be shared when improvements made to it are shared, too. It is the ultimate utility operating system. In order for Microsoft to maintain its monopoly, it has to eliminate freedom enough to prevent competitors from gaining an advantage. Microsoft fights that freedom, our freedom, every day when they fight Linux.
The numbers prove that, in the long run, Microsoft can't compete against freedom.
Friday, July 19, 2013
The Takers
I had a conversation with a conservative I happen to know. Without prompting, he went on to tell me about the problems posed by the "takers". You know, those 47%'ers of the population who are takers? He was talking about them.
Who are they? Some say that they are the people who pay no income taxes. Ah, but they do pay income taxes - Social Security taxes. Those payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare are taxes on income. Those taxes are paid one way or another.
More to the point, those taxes are not paid on capital gains or dividend income. They are not exacted upon corporate income, either. How do we know this? We have computers to collect the data and tabulate totals. Capital gains, dividends and corporate taxes are all much lower than taxes on ordinary income. How did that happen? Did the takers do that?
When the term "takers" is used in political discourse, they are referring to those lazy people on unemployment. You know, those people who paid taxes into an insurance program that helps to deal with the possibility that they may be unemployed someday? Yeah, those takers.
But there is a class of takers you're not going to hear about from conservatives. Maybe there is no name for them yet, so I offer a few examples.
Let's start with The SCO Group. There was once a company that has been in litigation for more than ten years over copyrights. They sued IBM and talked up the lawsuit hoping that IBM would just buy their company and everyone would be happy. Led by Darl McBride in Linden, Utah, The SCO Group insisted that IBM had taken code from UNIX and put it into Linux, infringing SCO's copyrights.
Years later, in other litigation, Novell prevailed against SCO to prove that Novell was the owner of the copyrights, not SCO. During all this litigation, McBride worked out the finances so that the only people who ever got paid were the lawyers by declaring bankruptcy before their case against IBM went to trial. Over the years, SCO managed to burn through millions in cash to ensure that neither IBM nor Novell could collect on any damages from counterclaims against SCO.
When I think of "takers" I think of The SCO Group first.
Dean Baker is a very interesting free market economist and he's also a bit liberal. He makes a valid point that directors in publicly held corporations meet with the board of directors maybe 3-4 times a year for a lot of money. Typical compensation for a member of the board of directors? $250,000 a year on average. What happens when the company does not report a profit? Do members of the board of directors take a hit in compensation? How about the CEO? Not very often.
To highlight this chasm between performance and compensation, a new website is in the works that will identify directors and CEOs that walk away with huge compensation packages even when they tank the company stock. It will be called DirectorWatch. Here's an interesting example of a taker from their Indiegogo site:
You would think that with today's technology, CEOs and members of the boards of directors would be more efficient, more effective, maybe even more productive. Apparently technology isn't really helping those CEOs do a better job.
Remember how the economy tanked in 2008? Who exactly was responsible for that? At least a few takers.
Who are they? Some say that they are the people who pay no income taxes. Ah, but they do pay income taxes - Social Security taxes. Those payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare are taxes on income. Those taxes are paid one way or another.
More to the point, those taxes are not paid on capital gains or dividend income. They are not exacted upon corporate income, either. How do we know this? We have computers to collect the data and tabulate totals. Capital gains, dividends and corporate taxes are all much lower than taxes on ordinary income. How did that happen? Did the takers do that?
When the term "takers" is used in political discourse, they are referring to those lazy people on unemployment. You know, those people who paid taxes into an insurance program that helps to deal with the possibility that they may be unemployed someday? Yeah, those takers.
But there is a class of takers you're not going to hear about from conservatives. Maybe there is no name for them yet, so I offer a few examples.
Let's start with The SCO Group. There was once a company that has been in litigation for more than ten years over copyrights. They sued IBM and talked up the lawsuit hoping that IBM would just buy their company and everyone would be happy. Led by Darl McBride in Linden, Utah, The SCO Group insisted that IBM had taken code from UNIX and put it into Linux, infringing SCO's copyrights.
Years later, in other litigation, Novell prevailed against SCO to prove that Novell was the owner of the copyrights, not SCO. During all this litigation, McBride worked out the finances so that the only people who ever got paid were the lawyers by declaring bankruptcy before their case against IBM went to trial. Over the years, SCO managed to burn through millions in cash to ensure that neither IBM nor Novell could collect on any damages from counterclaims against SCO.
When I think of "takers" I think of The SCO Group first.
Dean Baker is a very interesting free market economist and he's also a bit liberal. He makes a valid point that directors in publicly held corporations meet with the board of directors maybe 3-4 times a year for a lot of money. Typical compensation for a member of the board of directors? $250,000 a year on average. What happens when the company does not report a profit? Do members of the board of directors take a hit in compensation? How about the CEO? Not very often.
To highlight this chasm between performance and compensation, a new website is in the works that will identify directors and CEOs that walk away with huge compensation packages even when they tank the company stock. It will be called DirectorWatch. Here's an interesting example of a taker from their Indiegogo site:
Home Depot dumped its CEO Bob Nardelli at the beginning of 2007, just over six years after he took the position. During his tenure, the market value of Home Depot stock had fallen by 40 percent, according to one estimate. Lowe’s, the main competitor for Home Depot, saw its stock price nearly double over the same period. Yet, Nardelli walked away with $240 million for his efforts.When a CEO tanks the company stock and walks away with nearly a quarter billion, wouldn't you call *him* a taker? I would.
You would think that with today's technology, CEOs and members of the boards of directors would be more efficient, more effective, maybe even more productive. Apparently technology isn't really helping those CEOs do a better job.
Remember how the economy tanked in 2008? Who exactly was responsible for that? At least a few takers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)