retrotech

There is another very interesting analysis or better a critique of the iPad’s role on one of the technical book publisher O’Reilly’s blogs. It explains how the iPad can be, and seems intended to be, used to constrain and charge for materials presently available for ‘free’. An attractively packaged content distribution channel rather than a device that opens new opportunities or delivers new capabilities.
Inadvertently, a recent NPR show “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” had a funny bit that emphasized this point. They called a person with some joke questions about the iPad but the person they happened to call owned and “loved” an iPad. When asked what she could do with it that she couldn’t do before, the answer was … “Nothing”! But, she loved it.
I think I’ll skip the iPad. It would probably be useful, even nice, for very old people who don’t want to deal with the complexity of a more flexible device (computer), but just read email and maybe a few web site; an up-to-date webTV. I’ll get to that point soon enough, but I’ll pass for now!

Apple and Adobe have been fighting over control of web and mobile applications development tools and last week Apple made changes to their developers license that precludes use of a major feature in a forthcoming Adobe product. The following quote is from a Wall Street Journal article on the web this morning:

“An Apple spokeswoman said that Apple embraces standard technologies and that “Adobe’s Flash is closed and proprietary.”

Seems to me that both Adobe and Apple try very hard to establish closed monopoly environments which they can control and get rich on. Apple’s claim to “embrace standard technologies” excludes standards that they do not set or effectively control, but the wording suggests they support “open” standards. Their license change is certainly anti-competitive and in line with their own “closed and proprietary” approach.
Update: For a more detailed analysis of Apple’s PR, take a look at this ars technica article.

As if to re-enforce the message of the book “Fatal System Error”, this article appeared in my news reader yesterday. Seems that some guys in St. Petersburg, Russia broke into some stock trading accounts and then used them to ‘kite’ a few thinly traded stocks and make a ‘killing’ off of the stocks’ price moves.
St. Petersburg was highlighted as the home of a lot of corruption and of RBN (Russian Business Network) which apparently hosts a lot of shady and probably criminal web servers and provides them access to the Internet. Don’t know if RBN was involved, but it seems likely.

Friday, the postwoman brought us two unsolicited offers of credit cards! The first offers I’ve recieved in I don’t know how long. Probably about a year. Used to get them by the bushel, but that all dried up during the height of the ‘credit crisis’ which is now must be seriously easing. Or, maybe this was a fluke to be followed my more months of bleak economic news. No one can forecast the economy very well. I sure can’t

How to fight fires is not a topic I know much about, but the ‘hose’ and method described in this article is interesting and sounds promising. A laser like jet of water cuts a small hole for the water to enter a closed space. Less water used, less need for people to go into a burning building. That description doesn’t do it justice. Read the better description.

I don’t know what this site represents. It appears to be a professionally prepared site and I stumbled on it via an ad in Facebook. What does the company do besides take your money?!

“Is money tight?
Offer your soul out for rental and save up to 70% on the extraction procedure!”

Anybody has had their soul stored? Rented someones else’s soul? What’s it like?

Update (7/27/2009) – There is an ad for this company in the paper edition of the New Yorker dated today! Get em (or give em) while they’re hot!

A small financial trading firm, Themis Trading LLC, has published an interesting paper on how various firms use extremely fast short term trading program to make/scam/steal profits from the various electronic exchanges and ultimately from everyone else who is dependent on efficient markets (i.e. almost everybody via mutual funds, pensions, etc.). The process involves using programs running on machines with extremely fast access to the exchanges’ machines to place transactions based on what other machines are doing (e.g. breading up and trading blocks of shares). This paper was published about six months ago and other press articles has described aspects of it. It seems that a lot of people know about this game, but it was new to me.
Recently, a former Goldman Sachs programmer was accused of stealing their program trading code which may have been used in implementing such a scheme. In that case, the U.S. Attorney said in court “..this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways..”. Fair when G-S uses it, unfair when someone else does? That seems a little odd.
What intrigues me is the battle of machines involved in this game. From the descriptions, the ‘intelligence’ is programmed in by their owners and the machines just implement the strategies very, very quickly (microsecond?) before other participants can trade. It feels like ‘front running’ and old game in which a trader hears of a coming trade and buys/sells in front of it (which in turn sounds a lot like insider trading).
The machines do not represent “smart machines” which figure out strategies or tactics. Or, maybe they do……

The book “Daemon” described in my prior post is built around an imaginary ‘botnet’ set loose after its builder dies. That botnet is imaginary, as far as I know, but less capable botnets are very real and cause a lot of problems on the Internet and in the wider world. Botnets are the source of much of the spam, data theft, and disruptive attacks on legitimate web sites that seem to be a daily occurrence.
A botnet consists of a large number of Internet connected computers owned and operated by unsuspecting, normal, users that have been infected via email or via accessing a web site that injects malicious programs into the machine. These programs allow a remote controller of the botnet (a person using a computer somewhere) to tell the machines to send email, attempt to log on to a web site, or just take data from the machine and send it off over the internet to some place from which they retrieve it. The number of machines in a bot net can be huge; at least hundreds of thousands and probably in the millions. The BBC has a video of a simple use of a botnet to send spam. That activity by the BBC spawned its own controversy .
Recently, researchers at UCSD manage to get temporary control of a different botnet and analyzed the data that would be collected by the botnet’s controller. What they found makes interesting reading.

“Congestion charges” have been used for decades in Singapore and more recently in London. A simple concept: if you want to drive into congested zones, you pay more. Makes sense to me and we should try it (along with taxing gasoline) here in SF.

I don’t know of any systematic study of the results of using Congestion Charges, but this post reminded me of them and provides a positive anecdote.

The congestion charge has reduced traffic in London enormously and made it much more livable. It has also made the bus system usable again.

It is no secret that newspapers are in serious decline and a number of them have filed for bankruptcy protection. I haven’t subscribed to a paper in many years and hence am part of their problem. Like many others I get all the news I want via the internet, radio (most radio is via podcasts) and talking to other people. I still read one magazine printed on paper that arrives via the U.S. Mail which includes news related material.
I don’t miss the rather dirty and voluminous newspapers except when I want to cover a floor to protect it from paint or the trunk of my car to protect it from very dirty objects (like loads of garden mulch or compost). What will fill this niche if newspapers disappear? Purchased plastic sheets? That doesn’t sound like a step forward.
Speaking of plastic: In San Francisco, grocery stores can no longer provide plastic bags. This opens up the market for people to sell plastic bags as there still is a needed to line garbage cans.
Somewhere, someone must be saving old plastic grocery bags or newspaper mastheads in hopes of starting a museum for each. Maybe in what used to be a gas station along some highway.

This gave me a chuckle on the way home yesterday! Clever entrepreneurs out here in silicon valley.

Wired has an interesting article on the first use of a computer to predict the outcome of a national election: Eisenhower vs. Stevenson (of Illinois) in 1952. CBS News didn’t believe the machines ultimately correct prediction.
This was a clear case in which all the machine added was rapid processing of data to get a result in a useful time frame. The analysis was directly specified in advance of the election. Still true or are machines more capable?

At the beginning of 2000, we wrote about 35 paper checks per month. For the most recent four months, we’ve averaged about 9 per month with a high of 11 and only 6 last month. We don’t live much differently in most regards, but use electronic bill payment services and credit cards more. A significant portion of the remaining checks are charitable contributions for which the IRS requires a paper trail; more paper than before since acknowledgment letters need to be kept.
Additionally, more credit card statements, bank statements are provided electronically. They can be printed as needed, but why keep a moldering pile of paper?
Newspaper readership is shrinking. Want ads are moving to Craig’s list or equivalent.
Paper books are still useful to use and nice to read, but a gradually increasing portion of our reading is done on a screen. Nice paper used in invitations, etc. still looks and feels good (at least to my generation).
Overall, we seem to be making some progress toward chopping up fewer trees to make paper.

PS. A New York Times artivle on the paper usage from earlier this year.

Depending on what numbers you read, the US “cost of living” has recently been increasing by 2.5% to 3% annually. At my local BuyRite grocery store, the cost of a gallon of milk, non-fat, has gone from $3.99 to $4.99 in the last four to six weeks. That’s pretty close to a monthly increase of 20%. Let’s hope it is a very rare annomoly.
Or, maybe a bargain is being eliminated. A Google search comes up with $4.65 for a gallon of fat free milk in Danbury Connecticut. In any case my personal CPI has gone up.

E. M Forster

I have long remembered reading this short story in some high school English class. I didn’t remember it very well, but it is probably the only specific story that I can remember reading after around 50 years. It obviously had a strong impact, and I wanted to ‘read’ it again to refresh my memory. This time I listened to an audio recording provided by Libivox rather than turning pages. The story was written almost 100 years ago and is amazingly prescient about some aspects of the Internet as it now exists. But, it is a dark tale and very much a cautionary tale about over reliance on technology. A highly recommended listen or read. (Internet “haters” will love it.)

If reading it via the Internet is not too uncomfortable, the full text can be found here, and here.