Random Ramblings

US falls to 20th or 24th in high-speed internet

2007-06-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

Wow, I haven't posted in almost a year ... it's been a busy year, but not THAT busy : )

To harp on a topic I've mentioned before: the US has the most subscribers to high-speed internet services ("broadband" services), but we're 20th or 24th in the world in terms of percentage of our population that has such access. And we're not doing very good at increasing that percentage -- although we are consistently increasing the number of people with fast access.

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0607/ -- says we're 20th
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2102304,00.html -- says we're 24th

Neither report seems to talk about the cost of access, which, as far as I can tell, the US is not doing so well. Come on, $40 per month for a cable modem?? With more and more users getting on-line, I've noticed a decrease in bandwidth to my home computer.

We need serious telecom reform (and fast) if we want to remain competitive.

Wasting power?

2006-07-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

From Ed Nisley at Dr. Dobbs Journal:

"Here's a useful number: with electricity priced at $0.12 per kilowatt-hour, an always-on device dissipating 1 watt costs $1 per year. That wall-wart cell-phone charger that you leave plugged in under your desk costs $5 per year and your fancy LCD panel burns $8 a year when it's turned off."

Note that the main issue is if the power transformer is "before" or "after" the power-off switch. Many flat panels have external power supplies (the big black box that is in-line with the power cord), as do many other devices. These consume some amount of power whenever they are plugged in ... Need proof? Touch one. If it's warm or hot to the touch, then electricity must be going through it.

Not sure how I feel about this

2006-07-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

One more science post for the day ... one that I've been meaning to get around to for a while now. This image comes from Scientific Computing magazine, it is the ATLAS project at the Large Hadron Collider (atom smasher) at CERN.

This project is expected to cost nearly $8 BILLION (US$) ... although costs are spread across 34 countries.

I'm all for the progress of science, and I realize we need to do the "out-there" research in order to learn new things and do new science ... but $8B to find out the next smallest sub-atomic particle? That's more than $1 for every man, woman, and child on the entire planet! I don't even want to think about how many people that could feed, how many jobs that could create. At what point do scientists have some obligation to say, "This is good research, but it doesn't need to be done now" ???

FYI: the image comes from http://scientificcomputing.com/

Mars has weather?!?!

2006-07-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

I'm almost embarrassed to mention this, but I hadn't seen this before ... but they have photos of Mars weather! In particular, "dust devils" or mini-tornadoes. This photo is from the Tau Beta Pi link (see previous post), the original is at NASA's site:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/PIADetQuery.html and search for 'dust devils'

Moon dust ... serious space issue?

2006-07-07T10:28:00.000-07:00

From the Bent of Tau Beta Pi (http://www.tbp.org/pages/publications/BENTFeatures/Su06Bell.pdf) ... did you know that dust is one of NASA's top concerns with a permanent presence on the Moon (or Mars)??!?!?!

Seems kinda strange, but it turns out that moon-dust isn't the stuff that poets and songwriters would have us believe. Whereas dust on Earth tends to be organic (and hence soft), moon-dust tends to be shards of rock and powdered glass with lots of jagged edges and sharp points ... a very effective abrasive! They say wiping one's visor is enough to scratch the protective gold layer.

Digital Photography

2006-05-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

Here's one that just trolling for some controversy ...

In the IEEE Spectrum, columnist Robert W. Lucky comments that "The trouble with digital photograpy begins with the mind-set that it's free, prompting us to take a multitude of thoughtless pictures ... and the few good pictures that should be left to posterity are lost in a glut of trivia."

What do you think? On the one hand, cheap and easy-to-use digital photos are great for capturing those candids ... but how do you sort out the good from the bad? How many of you delete the bad photos right away? How often do you just keep them all since hard-disk space is so cheap? Do you have any suggestions for indexing photos or otherwise selecting the "good" from the "bad"?

Enquiring minds want to know!!

France 1, US 0 ???

2006-05-08T15:26:00.000-07:00

From IEEE Spectrum: due to deregulation in the French telephone market, many new companies are starting to offer very cheap voice+internet packages ... free.fr offers 15Mbps with 112 digital TV channels and unlimited voice-over-IP phone calls for around $36 per month. In the US, you can get 10-15Mbps with 170 digital TV channels and unlimited phone calls for around $100 per month.

An interesting comparison in the article: the French version of the FCC has 7 members with 3 graduates of Ecole Polytechnique (equivalent to MIT), and a fourth who taught at Ecole; other gov't telecomm officials include a president of a engineering college, an "engineer in chief" of a telecomm company, another "general engineer" in telecomm, and a doctor of mathematics and economics. By comparison, the US' FCC has four members: two are lawyers and two are historians.

The article also notes that the French company, Alcatel, recently "merged" with Lucent (former Bell Labs) -- but everyone now assumes Alcatel will be the dominant partner. This effectively means that the French now control the venerable Bell Labs, what used to be one of the world's premier research organizations.

It's just kinda sad.

Retro sci-fi or reality?

2006-01-20T05:56:00.000-08:00

From an article in IT Architect ... "Sanswire Networks has successfully flown its first two 'stratellites' over the California desert. These high-altitude airships transmit wireless communications the way satellites do, but less expensively." Instead of having to talk to a satellite (hundreds or thousands of miles high), your wireless device needs to only communicate with one of these stratellites (their own name) around 13 miles high.

Just seems kind of weird to have your ultra-high-tech wireless cellphone/pda/music player talking to ... a blimp!!

Death .... No Problem!

2005-12-12T16:11:00.000-08:00

Words of wisdom from Ian Pearson:

"Realistically, by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine -- so when you die, it's not a major career problem."

Ooooooh kaaaaaaaay.

Do Companies MAKE Anything Anymore?

2005-12-12T16:05:00.000-08:00

From Matt Asay, http://infoworld.com/3597:

"Seriously, Google piggybacks on content owners. Red Hat piggybacks on Linux kernel hackers (though it is now actively leading that development). ESPN(Mobile) piggybacks on Sprint's cellular network. I could go on. Doesn't anyone actually build things anymore? What will happen if we all turn into marketing machines? Will this leave us in a world devoid of substance or, in the case of open source, of software?"

Xmas Cash?!?!

2005-12-12T15:53:00.000-08:00

Amazon.com has launched a service called "The Mechanical Turk" ... a reference to an old chess-playing "robot" that was actually a hidden person (from Turkey, presumably). Anyway, there are some tasks that are easier for humans to do than computers such as pattern recognition in images -- e.g. reading a word on a billboard in a photo, or the name of a band on an image of an album cover. See http://mturk.com or http://amazon.com/mturk/

They'll pay you around $0.03 for each album cover image you view and identify. I'm not sure of the details, but one article I saw suggested you could make maybe $3.60 an hour. That's not even minimum wage, but if you have a job like a receptionist (with lots of down-time), that could get some you Xmas cash!!

Broadband internet

2005-11-07T17:36:00.000-08:00

"In theory, you could push fiber (-optic networks) up to 150 trillion bits per second - a rate that would deliver the text of all the books in the U.S. Library of Congress in about a second." -- unfortunately, the U.S. greatly lags behind the entire rest of the world in fast network access:

Broadband lines per person in 2004: South Korea - 25; U.S. - 12

Annualized rate of broadband growth, 1Q2005: Turkey - 263%; U.S. - 34%

Cheapest sign-up DSL monthly rate (March 2005): Taiwan - $11.32; U.S. - $26.95 ... The Taiwan service is at 512Kbps; the U.S. service is at 384Kbps

DSL's share of broadband (end of 2000): World - 57%; U.S. - 34%

DSL's share of broadband (1Q2005): World - 65%; U.S. - 41%

I got the quote and data from the October 2005 IEEE Spectrum magazine ... they got some of it from http://www.point-topic.com and http://www.cabledatacomnews.com

2005-10-31T17:41:00.000-08:00

"To say that our students are naturally proficient in the language of the digital world in which they grew up is not very accurate. A native speaker of English is not necessarily a great speaker or a gifted writer." -- http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/

A good point to keep in mind now that US science education is going down the tubes (can you say "intelligent design"?) ... the fact that we create, and live with, some of the most amazing technology doesn't mean we are the best at it, doesn't mean we'll retain that position of leadership without some effort, and doesn't mean we're teaching kids what they really need to know.

2005-10-13T17:26:00.000-07:00

"Free" is UN-AMERICAN??

There have been some grumblings about how cities should not be allowed to provide free wireless internet service to their citizens because it is anti-competitive and hence UN-AMERICAN!! The rationale is that if governments provide the service for free, then how can businesses compete with that?

Well ... ummm ... they can't. And why is that my problem?

This is what is known as a "bad business model." Think of the dot-com bust -- those weren't good business that hit a tight spot; they were bad businesses. WebVan -- the grocery delivery service -- was an absolutely GREAT idea!! But it was a bad business model -- no one wants to pay that much for their groceries. Internet advertising?? Bad business model -- 99.9999999999% of web users completely ignore banner ads -- who is going to pay you for ads that no one views? Telemarketers?? Bad business model -- no one wants to be hassled at home for cheap trinkets or phone service equivalent to the service we currently have.

The same is true with paid-for wireless vendors in cities. If someone else can offer it for free, then it is a bad business model. This is not a business in need of protection from "un-American" forces ... it is a bad business model that deserves to fail.

Similar logic has been applied to release of weather data and satellite photos -- again, if the gov't gives them away for free, how can businesses make money? In this case, we'll have to ignore the fact that the people (through the gov't) were actually the ones who paid for the weather data to be collected in the first place, so why shouldn't they get it free? But as is often the case in such political issues, we'll just throw away those facts that aren't convenient. Again, if your business is making money on the laziness of people, then it is a bad business model and we as a country should not support it or prop it up.

2005-09-21T18:20:00.000-07:00

This is by far the coolest picture I have ever taken in my life!!

It was a few years ago, I was walking down to the Eno River through some back trails when I heard a "WHAP!" on the water, like someone slapping their hand on it. I knew some beavers had built a dam nearby, so I ran down to the water's edge with my camera in hand, expecting to see some cute little furry critter coming downstream towards me.

Errrr, not so much.

In fact, it took me a few minutes to tell what exactly it was. Apparently, snakes are smart enough to know that fish need water to survive -- as it swam, the snake was actually HOLDING THE FISH OUT OF WATER to asphyxiate it! Eventually, it swam over to the bank of the stream and I could finally sort it all out in my brain ... and snap the photo. The "whap" that I heard was a water snake striking from the shore at a sunfish. FYI: it is a "Midland water snake", probably 5 feet long, maybe an inch and half in diameter; for comparison, the sunny is about the size of your hand.

2005-09-07T18:26:00.000-07:00

Talk about some BAD Advertising

I got a flyer in my recent Duke Power bill that was a really bad attempt at telling me how great and wonderful Duke Power is and how I should be happy with their exceptional efficiency. They showed how every $1 I send them is broken out:

$0.24 pays for power and fuel
$0.15 pays for monthly payroll
$0.11 pays for operating costs and maintenance
$0.14 is retained as earnings or used to pay dividends to stockholders
$0.17 pays for depreciation
$0.13 pays for taxes
$0.06 pays for interest and preferred stock options

First off, there is a figure of a dollar bill which is broken into pieces -- each item above has a line to a representative piece of the dollar bill. Except that it is not actually "to scale" and thus is extraordinarily misleading. The piece that represents the $0.11 for maintenance is nearly twice as large as the piece for $0.17 for depreciation! Of course, they did make the $0.24 part (that pays for actual fuel costs) the largest piece of the drawing -- just so I know how much they put out for little old me. Of course it is closer to 33% of the drawing, but who's really counting.

All of which also obscures the fact that for every dollar I send to Duke Power, nearly $0.20 is sent to stockholders! This is a LARGER percentage than they pay their actual workers.

2005-09-07T18:12:00.000-07:00

The wonders of bureaucracy!

I just saw this in a tech-y magazine the other day (infoworld.com, Ephraim Schwartz) ... talk about your government dollars being wasted. The gov't allows companies to hire foreign workers through various visa programs. In the tech fields, it tends to be the H1-B visas which are supposed to be somewhat specialized -- the company can't hire a US citizen because they couldn't find any US citizens with the proper technical skills. So the Dept Of Labor has a database of all these open positions so that they can consider whether to grant the visa application.

Hmmm, database of open job positions. You don't think anyone else would want to take a look at that, do you? Turns out the DOL will **NOT** allow any US citizens to search this database ... you know, 'cause why would any US citizen want a job? especially a high-paying job in the tech sector??

With all the uproar about overseas outsourcing, you'd think they'd reconsider this. But then, this is the US gov't. They have a database of jobs, they have people who want those jobs, but they cannot connect A with B.

2005-08-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

Blogger Spam

My sister's blog got hit with some blog-spam (not sure if there's a new name for that or not). The problem, of course, is that since it is free to sign up for a blogger account, anyone can do it including spammers. And if you shut down one spam-username, they'll just start a new one (since it's free).

One option is to make it non-free ... then you could track people through their credit card company. Of course, that would also pretty much kill blogging as we know it.

Another option is the use of those wavy-letter images that you may have seen. You type in the word in the image and it assumes you must be a real person not a computer program -- since lots of spam is computer generated, this can cut down on a lot of spam. But it also requires people to type in more stuff every time they want to post/comment, so it may detract from people wanting to blog. Again, that's bad.

One last option that I've heard of is to offer bounties for people to "hunt" down the spammers. Not quite like a citizen's arrest, more on the order of a free private eye service. If you can prove that someone is a spammer, then you'd get $100 (or $1000 or whatever). The hope is that there are enough geeks out there who would be willing to do the leg-work, then a company/legal agency could handle the actual court case.

2005-08-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

Stupid People and the DMV

I'm trying to find a way to explain this and make the people involved NOT seem stupid, but I really just can't.

I had to go to the DMV today to renew my driver's license. Ahh, yes! The DMV. Nothing says "FUN" like a trip to the DMV. The speedy, polite service ... a waiting room full of warm, friendly people. Why, of course, you'd want to bring your husband and two small 3-5 year old children with you to the DMV!! It's fun for the whole family!!

Why leave the little tykes (and Dad) at home with a room full of toys and Barney on the TV?? Why drop them off at the park where they could play on the jungle-gym and run around?? It'll be much more fun to bring them to a cramped room full of industrial-strength furniture, right?!?!

Yes folks, that's what I got to witness today. This family -- note that Dad came along so he could easily have stayed at home to babysit the kids -- the WHOLE family came to the DMV because Mom needed something done. I honestly like kids ... but can someone please explain to me what part of "DMV" (slow, onerous bureacracy) suggests that children with a 10-second attention span will enjoy it???

2005-08-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

NCAA buys NIT for $56.5M

Being at a Division I university with a pretty-damn-good basketball team, I've always been interested in how the NCAA rationalizes it's way out of NOT paying the semi-pro athletes that compete under their banners. Numerous reports tell about the life of the average "student-athlete" ... let's just say it about 10% student and 90% athlete. And that's on the off-season.

But they aren't paid because, we are told, they get a free college education -- that's payment enough! Besides, where are all these poor schools going to get that extra money to pay the kids $100 per month for pizza-and-hanging-out money?!?!?

Then we hear about the NCAA signing a $6B deal for the TV rights to the next 11 years of basketball coverage. And now we hear that the NCAA paid $56.5M basically to get out ot a lawsuit -- I mean, if you already own the NCAA championship, why do you need ANOTHER tournament in March??

So, where are those poor schools going to get the extra money to pay the athletes??? Oh, I don't know ... maybe they should ask the NCAA for their share of those millions/billions?? Maybe that's a start.

2005-08-15T17:46:00.000-07:00

The kidz are all right

I just got back from a youth group retreat and I have to say, if what I saw was any indication, Generation X is doing just fine ... in fact, they are quite an inspiration!

We took about 15 kids from our church and met up with another 50 from 6+ other churches out in the western part of NC. We did about 3 solid days of work for Habitat for Humanity and Samaritan's Purse. My group did landscaping and some flooring (laminate floor tiles) for an almost-complete house. At one point, we had to fill in a large mud-hole (low spot in the lawn) ... if we had some wheelbarrows to do the work, we could've been done in probably 1-2 hours. But we didn't have any wheelbarrows. So we did it with 5-gallon buckets. And no one complained. Not even once. They just went to work and we filled in the hole in about 3-4 hours. Everyone knew we could've been done much faster with the proper equipment, but no one whined about having to do it "the hard way." It was amazing.

So next time you're worried about "those kids" ... don't. They're doing just fine, and I have faith in where they're going to take us.

2005-08-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

As some of you may suspect, I've got some very MINOR geek tendencies ... very very minor, I'd be surprised if many of you even noticed it.

Anyhoo, I figured I'd put my "geek" blogs in a separate area ... so check out http://4444jbp.blogspot.com to see what I'm doing with my computer.

2005-08-03T16:09:00.000-07:00

Why don't people dress up anymore?

So I got a traffic ticket the other day and had to go to court. In North Carolina you can plead guilty and request a "prayer for judgment" ... which I did ... basically throwing yourself at the mercy of the court and saying you would never ever ever ever do it again -- or at least that you'll never ever ever ever get caught for doing it again : ) The ticket sorta goes on your record but isn't reported to your insurance company (you can only do it once every 3 years, so they do remember it).

Since my Momma done brung me up rite, I actually dressed up for my day in court: suit (a real suit no less, not off-the-rack separates from JC Penney), tie (no, it wasn't a clip-on), dress shoes (ok, I didn't actually shine them), the whole 9 yards. And as I sat there waiting to talk to the judge, I looked around at the maybe 200 or so people that were in the same court room ... and exactly 2 people were wearing ties. Myself and one other guy (who I knew, oddly enough), maybe another 2 women were in business/professional attire. But that's it, 4 people out of maybe 200.

And don't get me started on the gangsta's who came in all their finest. Pants down around their knees (that just looks stupid *and* uncomfortable), logo attire out the wazoo (why why why are you paying $50 for a cheap cotton t-shirt with some dude's name on it), or t-shirts that were about 5 X's too big for them. Yeah, that's dressing to impress.

I really can't understand that. Why on earth would you not dress up at least a little bit? Even for the purely selfish/childish reason of swaying the judge to be nice to you because you look like a nice guy. How can dressing up be a bad thing? Is it really that painful? You'd rather get a $300 traffic ticket?

I'm not trying to say how to dress on the other 364 days a year that you are hopefully *not* in court -- wear your wife-beaters and K-mart gold chains, I don't care (actual attire seen in court!). But just one day out of the year, you can't wear a suit? Even if it might help you?

2005-07-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

Space Shuttle is Aloft Again ...
... and a piece of foam insulation breaks off again

So NASA finally launched the Space Shuttle Discovery again, the first launch since the 2003 Columbia disaster, and following several days of delay for a faulty fuel gauge ... and the video footage shows ANOTHER piece of foam insulation breaking away during lift-off. Luckily, this one didn't seem to hit the craft (as happened with the Columbia). Until things are sorted out, NASA has again grounded the Shuttle fleet.

It's a good time to remember the danger that still surrounds space flight and the courage of the men and women who are flying in our Space Shuttles. Recent memories of the Columbia, and Challenger, don't even tell the whole story. Apollo 1 was destroyed on the launch pad. Several Soviet cosmonauts also were lost on various Soyez missions:

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0114.shtml

Humans weren't really made to live in space ... maybe that's why we have such a drive to go there!

Say a few prayers for the safe return of our astronauts!!

2005-06-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, I admit it ...

I used to watch MTV's Real World pretty religiously. Even up through last year, I'd watch it if it was on, although I didn't really care if I missed it. I guess I'm just an eternal optimist, but l was kinda hoping that this year would start off with something else -- instead, I see YET ANOTHER bar-room altercation leading to punches, people in jail, and this time, someone apparently with a fractured skull. Sounds just like last year, and the year before that, and ... Oh, and of course, there is the standard mix of stereotypes within the cast.

It seems to me there is an open opportunity for someone to come in and re-do The Real World, but to actually make it worthwhile television. Mixing up people of different races, cultures, backrounds, nationalities, etc., is a very worthwhile thing. For many of us who have gone off to college, this kind of interaction probably led to some of the biggest lessons we learned our freshman year -- everyone is NOT like us; stereotypes rarely fit (although somehow they DO seem to fit on The Real World); there is value in diversity. Good stuff! And all of that could easily be shown through a Real World kind of program. If done properly, it could lead viewers to examine their own preconceptions and views of other people -- again, good stuff!

Instead, we get alcohol poisoning, bar-room brawls, hot-tub parties leading to one-night stands, and really strange concepts of relationships -- not just cheating on the boy/girlfriend back home but actually expecting him/her to not blow up when they find out about it.

Like I said, it seems to me there is an open opportunity for someone to come in and re-do it. Unfortunately, given the crap the networks are currently putting out, they clearly wouldn't touch it without adding more sex and drama to it. That leaves it to some religious/cable channel, which means no one would actually watch it.

Oh well. Maybe next year?

2005-06-04T15:29:00.000-07:00

Well, since everyone else is posting blogs, I supose I should do it too (actually, I tried to get everyone into blogging some time ago, but alas, no one listened to me back then ... they probably don't listen to me now either).

2004-05-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

Follow up on old videogames ... Game Forms reports that John Woo may be directing a movie based on the old Spy Hunter videogame; potentially starring "The Rock"!! So maybe our old videogames don't suck as bad as those kids thought!! There will be movie and product tie-ins after all!!

2004-05-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

Gotta love those old videogames!! There's an article up at Electronic Gaming magazine where they made a bunch of 10 and 12 year olds play a bunch of our old arcade favorites. The title of the article is Child's Play ... and the kids are merciless!! But some of the quotes are quite telling -- here's what they had to say about Space Invaders (EGM is magazine correspondent, and "John" is 11 years old:


EGM: This game was so popular in Japan that--

John: They made it into a TV show?

EGM: Well, no. It was so popular that they ran ou--

John: Oh, did they make collectible trading cards for it?

EGM: Um, no. It was so popular that there was a shortage

        of the coins used to play it.

John: But you can get this game on a cell phone. Why 

        would you want to pay for it in an arcade?

2004-05-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

Great comic in today's paper in Non Sequitur by Wiley ... a news update ... "reporters continued their 4-year job-avoidance snooze as a steady stream of rhetoric and disinformation flowed from the White House unabated and unchallenged..." That sounds about right.

2004-05-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

So today I got the port-forwarding going through the Linksys router -- again, no big problems. Now I can ssh/scp into the machine from the net.

But I digress ...

There's a new Strong Bad email at homestarrunner.com -- with a couple of extra links, click on "barbzerdry" and on "Deutschman" and "napping" at the end. Also check out the new cartoon -- "Powered by The Cheat" -- where Strong Bad promises him a "trophy full of Steak-Ums" if he had only done a better job. Yeah, that's some nice imagery right there.

2004-05-03T18:22:00.000-07:00

So this is my first post from blogger.com ...

First, a shout-out to my homies in Brooklyn!! No seriously, I actually have homies (my sister) in Brooklyn.

I just got my wireless LAN set up at home. It's a Linksys WRT54G and works perfectly with Linux and Mac (OSX). It was a breeze to set up, no RTFM required. Even the WEP (security) config was straightforward.