1,800 years before the Swiss made their army knife, Roman soldiers were apparently equipped with this little all-purpose gadget, that didn't nothing really good, but was adequate with everything. Well, I'm not sure if all Roman soldiers were using the little gadget, but someone had one.
The Roman Army Knife came with retractable spike, spatula, small tooth-pick, spoon and fork.
So there you go. The Romans did it first.
As a Canadian, I cannot understand why there are so many Americans opposed to changing the nature of their health care system -- especially since it is expensive compared to what the rest of the developed world spends, and doesn't deliver the same quality of service to most -- unlike their developed world's counterparts. I can't understand why Americans defend the very insurance companies that gouge them on premiums, deny their claims and cancel policies.
I was having a similar conversation with my youngest recently, regarding unions and their self-interest. She pointed out something that hadn't occurred to me before -- that people in general, do not like it when others make decisions for them. That is the trouble that regulators -- and politicians -- run into on a regular basis. They try to enact legislation to protect their constituents, but regularly run into vehement opposition. It's like the union members that have been given everything they wanted without asking, but resent the fact that management figured they knew what the employees wanted. These are the people who shoot themselves in the foot and prefer the misery they know than the suggestion that someone else may actually have their interest in mind.
What it comes down to, in fairly simple terms -- people -- you're idiots -- and you just don't like it when someone even remotely suggests that you may be an idiot by offering to lend you a helping hand.
"But it is striking that the people who most dislike the whole idea of healthcare reform - the ones who think it is socialist, godless, a step on the road to a police state - are often the ones it seems designed to help. In Texas, where barely two-thirds of the population have full health insurance and over a fifth of all children have no cover at all, opposition to the legislation is currently running at 87%."
- BBC News - Why do people often vote against their own interests? (view on Google Sidewiki)
As much as I admire Google, they can be friggin' scary. Just take a gander at these little tidbits. While not the biggest, the Google Web Server today runs 13% of all active websites. Google has 40 data centres scattered around the world, all of them custom built to their specifications, running lots of custom-built tools -- including the Google File System, the number crunching MapReduce and the replication tool, Spanner. All of this on their own custom built hardware that is said to use a special Intel chip, and leveraging their own custom built routers. Heck, Google is also connecting their data centres across the world via its own underwater cables.
Awesome power, eh? Microsoft is up to the same tricks as well, building out data centres, etc., and they have their own secrets too. The big secret with Google? Much of the aforementioned is proprietary. It's not available to anyone, other than Google, and pretty much amounts to a private internet.
When Google's network gains sentience, we're screwed, and Arnold will be too old time travel and stop the madness.
OK, I think it's stupid to ban wearing pajamas at Tesco. I also think it's stupid to wear pajamas when you go shopping. But that's me. I never have the urge to pop in for a pack of smokes. So I can't relate.
in reference to:"She said she had been "popping in for a pack of fags," but if she had been doing a full shop "then we obviously would have gone in clothed". "But we only wanted fags and they still refused us to go in for a pack of cigarettes," she added."
- BBC News - Tesco ban on shoppers in pyjamas (view on Google Sidewiki)
They seem to be everywhere these days, and it's friggin' scary. It's scary that at this point in humanity's progress, we're encountering a concerted effort to take us back to the dark days when irrationality was the norm. More and more, irrational minds are making it to institutions of higher education -- which is a failure of our education system. The fact that irrational people are, 1) not being taught how to think rationally; and 2) making it into institutions of high education, is alarming. If they're not learning how to think rationally in school, then they are not being educated -- and if they are making it to post-secondary, then secondary schools are failures -- because these idiots should be failed there, and not allowed to continue any further. There is a bare minimum that is required to be able to continue. Why are they being allowed to squeak by?
in reference to:"A 21-year-old medical student and member of the Islamic Society, who did not want to be named, said that the Qur'an was clear that man had been created and had not evolved as Darwin suggests. "There is no scientific evidence for it [Darwin's Origin of Species]. It's only a theory. Man is the wonder of God's creation."He did not feel that a belief in evolution was necessary to study medicine although he added that, if writing about it was necessary for passing an exam, he would do so. "We want to become doctors and dentists, we want to pass our exams." He added that God had not created mankind literally in six days. "It's not six earth days," he said, it could refer to several thousands of years but it had been an act of creation and not evolution."
- Academics fight rise of creationism at universities | World news | The Guardian (view on Google Sidewiki)
Yes, we suck. The latest Environmental Performance Index has been released by Yale & Columbia. It ranks us 46 out of 163 countries, on 25 performance indicators. We're running middle of the pack on score, sandwiched by the likes of Mexico, Ireland, Romania, Netherlands, Fiji and the Maldives. The US is not too far behind us.
Where did we really hurt? Believe it or not, air pollution's impact on the ecosystem (not human impact), was our worst score. We love pumping out sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and ozone. Next, as anyone on the coastal areas of Canada will tell you, our fisheries has been decimated. We're guilty of trawling and dredging just a little too much. And the final area where we score bad, was climate change. We continue to emit way too much greenhouse gas per capita -- and CO2 for electricity generation.
Topping the list, you'll find four standouts -- Iceland, #1, followed by Switzerland, Costa Rica and Sweden. At the other end, you'll find just about every African and Asian country -- which should come as no surprise. There is a correlation to EPI score and GDP per capita.
Rush Limbaugh has finally come out and admit he has no talent and a life that is horseshit, but he doesn't have the courage to do something about it and put the rest of us out of his misery.
The Onion has out done itself!
"I don't enjoy that stuff. I don't enjoy anything. I don't even want to be here. The sadness and regret I feel every waking hour of my life is absolutely unbearable. I am a miserable pig and I do not want to exist. The irony is that, even if I did die, the hell I would surely be sent to could not possibly be any worse than the bottomless pool of excrement I already paddle around in like some demented, shit-covered walrus. In fact, every time I hear my voice coming through the headphones I nearly gag, and I think, "What the fuck am I doing?" Why would I say that Michael J. Fox is faking his Parkinson's symptoms? Why would I find it funny to play a song called "Barack the Magic Negro"? Why would I tell people not to give aid to Haiti? What the fuck is wrong with me?"
- I Don't Even Want To Be Alive Anymore | The Onion - America's Finest News Source (view on Google Sidewiki)
Bruce Schneier makes a point that you may not want to hear. By giving up our freedoms to fight terrorists, child pornographers and other malcontents, we, the people, have handed the perfect weapon to those who want to eavesdrop on every electronic communication we make.
Schneier places the blame not on China, for being able to hack Gmail, but on the western governments, led by the United States, that have passed laws that require technology companies to provide law enforcement officials a backdoor into our email accounts and phone lines. It is no secret that the telecoms in the US corporate with the US government to allow the surveillance of telephone calls across their lines and airwaves -- but what may not be widely known, is that the same is required of Internet services companies.
Your email account is not secret from a curious law enforcement official. Ever wonder what else isn't totally secure? If there's a backdoor built to allow anyone access to your private information, it is a door that is potentially available for the wrong person to also enter.
It's the Asians -- specifically, China and Japan, that drive the demand -- and the Africans are mixed about wanting to fulfill the demand. Mostly, it's the poachers -- but now, it's Tanzania and Zambia, who are looking to create a legitimate market for elephant tusks. A legitimate market drives demand, and also allows illegal tusks to easily slip through the cracks.
The elephant population in Africa has been decimated. Chad has a few hundred left. Senegal and Liberia has fewer than 10 each. Sierra Leone lost their last elephants in November. Elephants are currently on the endangered species list -- for a reason. Other African countries oppose any legitimate sale of ivory -- and are asking the world for help. It would say something if the governments of China and Japan stepped up and voiced support for biodiversity and an endangered animal. Of course, I'm not holding my breath.
Criticism is easy, but offering solutions hard. The US is planning to put about 20,000 troops into operation to get Haiti back up, and France, Nicaragua and Venezuela are upset. No surprises there. Medecins Sans Frontieres want the US to deliver medicine first, and soldiers second -- or presumably, never.
What's wrong with these people? Absolutely nothing, if you understand that they are motivated by self-interest. The US is likewise motivated by self-interest. What the US gets out this? Less illegal Haitian immigrations. Some goodwill after making a mess of Iraq. Haiti is in the US' backyard, so it feels (has) an obligation to respond.
But who cares about the self-interest. What are the Haitians getting out of this? Stability, hopefully. Hopefully the US troops won't go off half-cocked and start murdering civilians. Soldiers on the ground will hopefully prevent the chaos from descending to savagery. Without stability, there will be no medicines delivered, no logistics for further rescue and rebuilding.
Troops are needed. This is in the US' backyard, and let's face it, the US military is very good at logistics. Let them take charge. The US can hopefully redeem itself for missing the ball on New Orleans.
It was a religious movie. It was about fate. It was a King James bible, written in braille. Oh, sorry, I should warn you. If you haven't seen the movie, I'm about to ruin it for you.
But don't take that the wrong way. I actually was entertained by the movie. I just can help pissing all over it however, because a big part of it was silly, and the other big part of it was silly, too. What was left of the movie, was entertaining. So I advise you to check your brain at the door.
The premise of the movie: 30 years ago, the world was lit up in a nuclear war -- or at least, America had nuclear weapons rain down on it. Most people died. Quite a few were blinded. Those that left, fended for themselves. In other words, they reduced themselves to savagery.
Enter Eli. He's blind. But you won't find this out until the very last minute of the movie. I just ruined it for you. (My pleasure, no need to thank me.) A voice (that's god for the uninitiated) tells him to go looking in some rubble for a bible, then take it and head west. After the war, apparently the atheists took over and burn all the bibles, since religion was blamed for the war. Eli's bible is the only one that remains. In America, anyway.
30 years on, Eli is still walking. He packs the vengeance of god with him, in the form of a blade that would make Wesley Snipes shake in his boots -- and some nice guns. He also eat cats, speak to rats and has a thing for lip balm. He thinks cannibalism is bad, however. He's blind, but that's OK, god is leading him west. Maybe. God also lets us know that the blind, as well as having the ability to kick ass, have super human smell and hearing. Apparently, god is currently fucking with blind people around the world, by withholding this super power.
That's the first part that's silly.
The other part that's silly, is the whole religion thing. Eli has fate. Good for him. It helps him get up every morning, kick ass and wear cool shades (not exactly in that order). But I think Eli got it wrong. Carnegie (Gary Oldman) got it right. It's all about control. It's all about having the right words. And the bible is full of the right words to get people to be obedient and do whatever shit you tell them to do. That's what probably got the world to apocalypse in the first place, and Eli's fate is just going to get it there again, as the movie ends with the words of Eli being rolled off the press in Alcatraz.
Alcatraz. Yes, the irony was not lost on me.
"A common misperception is that when someone loses their sight, or for that matter any of their other senses, their other senses become more sensitive. This is not true. In actuality, when one is deprived of a sense, he or she will learn to use their remaining faculties more efficiently. In other words your other senses do not be come stronger; you just learn to obtain information through them that you would have obtained through the sense you lost. For example, with sight you could look at someone's face and know immediately that that person is smiling, where as if you were blind you'd have to listen to that person's voice inflection to be able to tell if they were smiling or not."
- Myths and Stereotypes About Blind People, Blind Myths and Stereotypes (view on Google Sidewiki)
After Google made their announcement to lift their censorship in China, regular Chinese folks from Beijing started arriving at Google.cn HQ, and leaving flowers behind. Apparently, local security guards didn't take too kindly to the act, and that led to an Internet meme and phrase "illegal flower tribute" being censored in China.
Yes, this has now gotten stupid.
"subsequent visitors were arriving only to discover that the flowers donated by previous visitors had been promptly removed by the alleged "security guards", and one security guard from the neighbourhood was reported saying that, in order to deposit flowers people would need to apply for permits at the related departments; otherwise without approved permits, they would be conducting an "illegal flower tribute"."
- Illegal flower tribute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (view on Google Sidewiki)
After the first season of Star Trek, Nichelle Nichols was itching to move on to her dream of Broadway and singing -- until she had a fateful run-in with Dr. King.
And the rest, is history.
"And at this his face totally changed, and he said "What are you talking about?!" and so I told him I would be leaving the show, because; and that was as far as he let me go, and he said, "STOP! You cannot! You cannot leave this show! Do you not understand what you are doing?! You are the first non-stereotypical role in television! Of intelligence, and of a woman and a woman of color?! That you are playing a role that is not about your color! That this role could be played by anyone? This is not a black role. This is not a female role! A blue eyed blond or a pointed ear green person could take this role!" And I am looking at him and looking at him and buzzing, and he said, "Nichelle, for the first time, not only our little children and people can look on and see themselves, but people who don't look like us, people who don't look like us, from all over the world, for the first time, the first time on television, they can see us, as we should be! As intelligent, brilliant, people! People in roles other than slick tap dancers, and maids, which are all wonderful in their own ways, but for the first time we have a woman, a WOMAN, who represents us and not in menial jobs, and you PROVE it, this man [Gene Rodenberry] proves and establishes a precedent that validates what we are marching for because three hundred years from today there we are, and there you are, in all our glory and all your glory! And you CANNOT leave!""
- The 'true story' of how Dr. King kept Uhura on Star Trek | SCI FI Wire (view on Google Sidewiki)
This shit disgusts me, makes me angry and reminds me why we send soldiers to die in Afghanistan -- and why every member of al-Shabab should be castrated -- to start with.
Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was 13-years-old, and she cried for mercy. This was after she was raped by three men, tried under Sharia law by al-Shabab in Somalia, and had her sentence for adultery handed down. They took her to a football stadium, put her in a hole up to her neck, and with an audience of over 1,000 to watch, 50 men threw stones at her. When she stopped moving, nurses went to check her pulse. She was still alive. So they put her back in the hole, and continued the stoning. She died in that hole back in October 2008.
Fuck your Sharia!
If you're Muslim and I offend you, then fuck you too. You should be offended by the rape and murder of Aisha. It should make your blood boil. Not because your religion was used to justify this atrocity -- but because a little girl was raped and murdered. You should be screaming bloody murder about this shit. You should want to take up arms against these monsters. You should go fundamentalist with your intolerance.
But I don't hear you.
I never hear you.
And when you don't speak out against shit like this, it makes you no better than the monsters that do this in the name of your religion.
She would have been 14 now. Still a little girl.
""After two hours, the Islamic administration in Kismayo brought the lady to the place and when she came out she said: 'What do you want from me?'" "They said: 'We will do what Allah has instructed us'. She said: 'I'm not going, I'm not going. Don't kill me, don't kill me.'"
- BBC NEWS | Africa | Stoning victim 'begged for mercy' (view on Google Sidewiki)
Again, the courts disregarded the big picture -- and the big picture is we don't know for certain that there will be a problem, but we need to make a decision now, just in case. It's called the precautionary principle. The potential danger is sufficient to require action now -- it's just not worth the risk of doing nothing.
What the hell is wrong with Illinois? Change would impact using the waterways for trade.
"U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan told the court that Michigan failed to show likely irreparable harm, that the state cannot prevail on the merits of its theory and Michigan cannot justify the mandatory relief it demands."
- Michigan request denied in Great Lakes carp case | Reuters (view on Google Sidewiki)
Google continues to generate news. This time, it's European publishers and regulators looking to corral its business practices. Some of the accusations are ... well ... to put it politely, stupid. The Germans are upset because Google generates more ad revenue than them -- and suggest that Google is manipulating its search results to make more money. Italians are upset that they want to opt out of Google News, but still want high ranking in Google Search. Belgians want Google News to stop linking to them, as they see no value.
As I see it, Google is making a lot of money by directing people to what it thinks are relevant search results, news and placing ads to entice people to click. Other than search, how is that different from any other website that provides external links?
Am I missing something?
I can't believe Gaiman is a Scientologist -- or at least a reformed one -- if there is such a thing. It's a fact that I'm now, not going to forget, but will forgive, and try not to think about.
Read a lengthy article on the man, published in the New Yorker, five days from now (link below). He's still one of my favourite authors.
"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. . . . I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman."
- Neil Gaiman's fantasies : The New Yorker (view on Google Sidewiki)
With Google.cn lifting censorship of searches, some Chinese netizens have been going crazy with the searches while the going is good. They know it won't last, and they're enjoying the last days of Google.cn.
The Financial Times article (linked below) looks at the issue with some broader context, and asks if the placating approach western businesses and countries have taken with China, has been the right one. Are we doing the average Chinese citizens any favours by playing by the Chinese government's rules? And what happens in the long run when China doesn't actually liberalize? Interesting points to speculate on.
""I've been doing all sorts of crazy searches, really distracting myself from my work," says one. "I've done Tiananmen Square, the love affairs of national leaders, the corruption of leaders' children. Everything.
"Another internet user says the buzz of illicit abandon is reminiscent of the mood in Tiananmen Square itself, shortly before the People's Liberation Army crushed the protests there in 1989. "There is no way that Google will get away with this. They will have to leave China for sure," he adds.
The surreptitious joys of "netizens" may not be alone in existing on borrowed time. Google's defiance of China's censorship regime is indicative of much more than a single company's decision to reassert its open-society principles over the pragmatism by which it originally entered the Chinese market, agreeing then to self-censor in return for business licences. Google's move may suggest that the accommodations made by western companies in China can extend only so far before contorted values snap back into place."
- FT.com / Comment / Analysis - China and the west: Full circle (view on Google Sidewiki)
Pirates are thieves. There's nothing really nice about what they do. That being said however, the Somali pirates may offer a few benefits that should be reflected on in this imperfect world.
To start with, the Somali piracy problem may be a bit overblown. If 22,000 ships passed safely by Somali pirates last year, and only hundreds were taken for ransom -- recorded hijackings put the number at 42, last year -- resulting in about a $100m loss due to ransoms -- then is it really a big problem requiring the world's navies to try and manage? To increase patrols would cost a lot more money. Economically, it might be just as effective to pay higher insurance premiums and take the risk.
The pirates themselves make it a dangerous place for ships to be -- especially closer to coast. There is already evidence that ships have used the waters off Somalia to dump toxic waste -- including nuclear material. Illegal fishing off Somalia's coast has also been a problem. Somalia, a failed state, can do nothing about these things. Yet I'm sure that the presence of the pirates have made it difficult for these activities to go unchallenged. Really, who wants to take the risk of being caught -- especially by pirates -- with no assets on board of value to make someone want to pay for your release?
The failed state of Somalia is also a haven for much worse than pirates -- terrorists -- of the Islamic fundamentalists sort. Harakat al-Shabaab Mujahideen already has control of huge swats of Somalia, including parts of Mogadishu. The developed world, notably the US, is not about to send troops there. Maybe a few drone bombings or air raids, but there's no chance of ground troops to save Somalia from succumbing to al-Shabaab. Who stands in al-Shabaab's way? Pirates. The two do not go well together. The pirates make their money in the most un-Islamic way -- and turn around the spend it likewise. Drinking and whoring, as is the pirate way, is not the way of fundamentalist Islam. To date, there really hasn't been any skirmishes of note between the pirates and al-Shabaab -- but if the Islamic thugs try to hinder the pirates lucrative trade, how long will it be before it's war?
"In any event, some shipping people privately say that the effects of piracy have been exaggerated. It may still be cheaper and more convenient to pay higher insurance fees and risk being attacked by pirates than to incur the extra cost of diverting vessels around the Cape of Good Hope."
- Somalia's pirates: A long war of the waters | The Economist (view on Google Sidewiki)
I just came back from seeing Avatar for the third time -- and while the visual spectacle was still there, I paid a lot more attention to the dialogue this time. A lot of the critics who panned the film, panned it for the 2-dimensional story. I will have to humbly disagree with those critics. The story, unfortunately, is just as 3D as the visual spectacle itself.
The story of Avatar is the story of colonialism. Through our history, colonial powers have swept onto unprepared lands and savaged their people and environment. Today that practice continues, only this time it is mostly corporations and not just government funded mayhem that is descending on the unsuspecting. When a people is destroyed, their culture and history taken away, they are left with nothing. We shouldn't be surprised at the state Africa in which finds itself in today -- and why the tribes in North America have not recovered. It wasn't uncommon for instance for the Beothuk (the people) to be hunted for sport by the British. They are now extinct, in what is now widely regarded as genocide by the Europeans. While most of us may not understand -- we can only imagine what the indigenous populations around the world have suffered at the hands of colonial powers and the business interests that rode in their wake.
"The next level of debasement is to dehumanize altogether, i.e. to compare people who are about to be killed to insects or other lower life forms. During the Rwandan genocide, less than two decades ago, Rwandan Public Radio was calling on all law abiding Hutus to "exterminate the cockroaches," a mandate that makes Colonel Quarritch's one-liner about insects seem not so outlandish after all.
Such evil-speak is not the stuff of Hollywood fancy. It is the true life vocabulary of people who do unimaginable things. The real reason we find one-liners like this so laughable in movies is not always that they are cheesy, it's that most of us -- in a post-modern and somewhat self-aware world -- cannot even conceive of a mentality that would utter such bile. Sadly, such bilious people are not only still out there, they are thriving."
- Josh Schrei: Avatar and the Vocabulary of Evildoers -- Or, Why James Cameron's Script Isn't as Bad as You Think (view on Google Sidewiki)
If this report is true, whoever orchestrated this attack -- industrial espionage or just hunting for information about political dissidents -- has caused a huge embarrassment for the Chinese government. While the Chinese government continues to tell the world to stay out of its internal affairs, it has gone to pains to engage the world as an equal to the US. While the US spies -- even on its friends -- it's usually not industrial espionage -- or it's good enough to hide its trail well. Whoever did this got caught, and that can't bode well for his head. I expect if there's any mea culpa from China, it will come from a scapegoat, who will shortly lose their head after an expedient trial.
in reference to:"If the report's findings are correct, it suggests that the government of China has been engaged for months in a massive campaign of industrial espionage against US companies."
- Researchers identify command servers behind Google attack (view on Google Sidewiki)
For a view of what the recession looks like, the Daily Mail takes a look at shipping coming from Asia. Specifically, off the coast of Malaysia, where about 500 ships are moored, with nowhere to go, and apparently, with no cargo.
It's all doom and gloom in the shipping industry apparently, with Maersk reporting it's first half-year loss in its 105-year-history, last year, and expectations that it will remain over capacity for the next couple of years.
I've updated the article's satellite photo of Singapore's harbour,
The latest China PMI shows December to be up from November, to 56.1 -- indicating that manufacturing is again taking off in China. Capacity isn't going towards the domestic consumer goods market however, as a lot of China's stimulus went to infrastructure spending. Will there be trickle down domestic consumer spending? Is some of that manufacturing capacity going to send goods to North America and Europe? Do we have any money to spend? Retail sales has been down all of 2009, and most expect there to be a soft recovery in 2010, even with the little surge we saw at Christmas.
2010 will be an interesting year -- for the container ships moored off Singapore as well.
"On January 12, Freedom House released its findings from the latest edition of Freedom in the World, the annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties. According to the survey’s findings, 2009 marked the fourth consecutive year in which global freedom suffered a decline—the longest consecutive period of setbacks for freedom in the nearly 40-year history of the report. These declines were most pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa, although they also occurred in most other regions of the world. Furthermore, the erosion in freedom took place during a year marked by intensified repression against human rights defenders and democracy activists by many of the world’s most powerful authoritarian regimes, including Russia and China."
- freedomhouse.org: Freedom in the World 2010 Survey Release (view on Google Sidewiki)
Google is now in the process of reviewing its China operations, and will be discussing with Chinese authorities the how they can remove all filters from their searches and still operate within the law. This all came to head, after Google has been censoring itself for years, after a concerted effort from hackers from China to gain access to Gmail accounts that belong to human rights activists. Google didn't say, but by implication, I'm assuming it was Chinese human rights activists.
I've never been too comfortable with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft censoring themselves to operate in China. When I was there recently, I ran a little experiment myself -- nothing that would get me in trouble -- but I used Bing and Google to search in different cities. Amazingly, Google allowed me to find, more or less, some questionable content -- whereas Bing just told me that the search term was restricted and didn't give any results.
This move by Google, if taken to its logical end, is something to be proud of. Way to go Google ... looks like you're believing in "do no evil" again.
"These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."
- Official Google Blog: A new approach to China (view on Google Sidewiki)
These are absolutely hilarious -- and dangerous.
Adam has a problem. He talks in his sleep. His wife also has a problem -- she has to listen. But then she decided to turn an insomniac lemon into a web-lemonade. She started jotting down her sleeping husband's murmurings, and posting them on a blog.
""Your mum's at the door again. Bury me. Bury me deep."
"Yeah, keep looking. It doesn't get any better than this."
"Shhhhhhhhh. shhhhhhhhh. I'm telling you: your voice, my ears. A bad combination.""
- Sleep Talkin' Man (view on Google Sidewiki)
Every single one of us has some cotton clothing in our closets. And every year we buy more, despite not needing more clothing. It's a fashion thing. We want the latest, so we splurge on new tees, shirts, skirts and the like. The world produces lots of the stuff, and the trade of raw cotton is estimated to be around $12B USD -- with the largest producers by far, China, India and the US. The cotton business is big business -- think of all of the cotton China & India consumes, to produce gawdy wear for the likes of you and I -- raw cotton may get imported directly into China & India, or woven into cloth somewhere else, before being shipped to the garment factories, where the poor toil for endless hours to produce a "Eco Friendly" tee.
So how "eco friendly" is your tee? Probably not very. Cotton is one of the worst commodity crops traded internationally -- if not the worst. To begin with, the cotton fibre is mostly water -- and for the large cotton producers, most of that water comes from irrigation -- not rainfall -- destroying otherwise arable land and draining aquifers. The chemicals used to fertilize cotton plants, kill weeds and insects also have a huge impact to the environment. Most end up in the water system, with nutrients fueling algae blooms that suffocate fish. Further down the cotton supply chain, textile printing and dying puts the final nail in the coffin. More chemicals are used here that further pollute waterways. It's so bad, that it is estimated that 1 in 4 Chinese drink polluted water -- and some rivers are unsafe to even touch.
In the US, it's estimated that Walmart and Kmart sell 1/4 of all clothing. After we finish wearing our clothes -- after it has gone out of fashion, most of us just dump it. Yes, most of us do just that, and send it to clog the local landfill.
Listen to some Lead Belly while you read you read the Global Cotton and Textile Product Chains report [PDF].
"This report, which summarizes the results of the first phase of the Global Markets Project, provides an overview of the social and environmental impacts associated with the Chinese forestry, cotton and E-product supply chains, as well as a corresponding set of recommendations to the Chinese government as it moves towards its objective of attaining HeXieSheHui ("harmonious society"). The report's conclusions suggest a series of concrete actions available to the Chinese government as it seeks to leverage the forces of the market as a vehicle for stimulating sustainable production, consumption and trade."
- Sustainable Development and China: Recommendations for the Forestry, Cotton and E-products Sectors (view on Google Sidewiki)
There is something to be said for European history. They way it's written by the Europeans, they're, of course, the heroes. They brought 'much needed' civilization to the world -- but much of that civilization came with murderous savagery. They were barbarous in their treatment of the peoples the encountered. The only ones who were greeted with any respect were those that had enough might to pose a violent threat to them (the Wazirs and Mehsuds come to mind) -- but even those few, were eventually managed so they posed little threat. The colonial legacy remains today, a sickness that besmirches the societies left behind in the wake of Europe's retreat.
I haven't read much of Russia's past adventurism, so this was a little introduction for me, and reading it just left me angry. Russia's society has not advanced enough to reflect on, and acknowledge its shameful past -- which is too bad, as that may give it a little pause before it continues that sadism.
"The adventurers did not themselves hunt the fur-bearing animals, hunting the natives instead. In the name of the tsar, they demanded pelts as yasak (tribute) from reindeer herders, steppes nomads and hunter-gatherers. As the fur-bearing population gave out in one place, the Russians moved east and north, following the streams and portages of the rivers that flowed to the Arctic Ocean. To ensure that yasak was paid, native women and children were taken hostage, enslaved and raped. Settlements were torched. In four decades the population of native Yakuts in the Lena basin collapsed by 70%. Piotr Golovin, the Cossack governor of Yakutsk, hung men on meat hooks when yasak quotas went unfulfilled. Like so many of his contemporaries, Golovin was an equal-opportunity sadist who killed his own. Official history still defends these men."
- The Amur River: The Amur's siren song | The Economist (view on Google Sidewiki)
As this study just published in France reveals, genetically modified (GM) maize may not be good for human consumption. The study looked at three GM maize -- NK 603, MON 810 and MON 863 -- all of which are approved for feed and human consumption in Canada.
NK 603 has been engineered to be tolerant of the herbicide glyphosate -- popularly branded by Monsanto as Roundup. Farmers are encouraged to control weed that compete with their maize crops using Monsanto's Roundup -- but since Roundup would destroy their crops as well, they needed the NK 603 genetically modified maize to be their crop. Monsanto of course, makes their money from selling both the poison that will kill their crops and the crops that have immunity from their own poison. Sweet deal.
MON 810 and MON 863 GM maize, have been modified to synthesize two Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins used as insecticides -- commonly known as Dipel and Thuricide. Bt toxins are applied in a liquid spray to maize crops -- and to be effective, must be absorbed by the maize.
So, in all three GM maize, NK 603, MON 810 and MON 863, you're betting that you're not going to be getting any Roundup, Dipel and Thuricide into you. It's not that the GM maize in themselves are necessary bad -- it's the fact that the crops that are harvested have the potential to be carrying the herbicide and insecticides they were designed be resistant to.
The French study takes the guess work out of it for you. The three GM maize crops studied, show that they all carry the toxins they were designed to be resistant to. In rats, the toxins found in the GM maize affected the kidney and liver, as well as the heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system.
"Our analysis clearly reveals for the 3 GMOs new side effects linked with GM maize consumption, which were sex- and often dose-dependent. Effects were mostly associated with the kidney and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs, although different between the 3 GMOs. Other effects were also noticed in the heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system. We conclude that these data highlight signs of hepatorenal toxicity, possibly due to the new pesticides specific to each GM corn. In addition, unintended direct or indirect metabolic consequences of the genetic modification cannot be excluded."
- A Comparison of the Effects of Three GM Corn Varieties on Mammalian Health (view on Google Sidewiki)
One piece of evidence that is used to ascribe people-ness to homo sapiens is that fact that early in our emergence, we produced art. Art is evidence of symbolic thought -- and lack of it, specifically in Neanderthals has always been used to suggest they were mentally inferior to us. Well, guess again.
Evidence has been found in last few years, and now in Spain, that gives hard evidence of Neanderthals possessing the ability to produce art -- having the same capabilities as early humans, for symbolism, imagination and creativity. Neanderthals may not have died out because they were stupid after all.
Since Neanderthals and Homo sapiens existed at the same time, and most likely interacted as our ancestors emerged from Africa to Europe, there is interesting possibilities for the types of interactions we may have had. Not just exchanges in rituals and art, but there have been suggestions that inter-species breeding may have occurred.
It continues to surprise that we gravitate towards the simplistic view of evolution. It's not black and white. It's not a sharp change, from one species to another. It's gradual, over long periods of time. We just love our labels to distinctly identify one species over another -- but over time, the change from one to another is gradual. And there is no reason why one branch couldn't become intertwined into another.
Cross-breeding did occur. I see Neanderthals everyday -- and I don't use that to describe the slower ones.
The Mycocepurus smithii ant species, range from Northern Mexico through South America -- and scientists have found through that range, that there are no makes. Mycocepurus smithii, it seems, have dispensed with the males and the messy business of sexually reproducing. This is remarkable, because while there are ant species that reproduce asexually, the females do have the ability to produce males every now and again, for specific reproduction and probably evolutionary reasons.
Just another confirmation for me, that really, the ladies would be able to get along just fine without us guys.
A significant attitude change is need in Asia, or we're going to end up with a lot less elephants (not to mention whales) in the near future. That attitude change is not going to coming overnight, and it's not going to come from wishful thinking -- it's going to come from education.
The elephants are heading to extinction due to the ivory trade. Today's population of 600,000 elephants in Africa is being killed off at a rate of 38,000 annually -- faster than the birthrate. The death sentence needs to be handed out.
Fucking Japanese whalers. The fact that the UN body governing whaling continues to let the Japanese harvest whales for "scientific research" every year is appalling.
"The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s anti-whaling interceptor boat Ady Gil sank in the icy waters off Antarctica today, two days after it was rammed by a 1,000-ton Japanese whaling vessel, a spokeswoman for the militant conservation group said."
- Rammed anti-whaling boat Ady Gil sinks off Antarctica | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times (view on Google Sidewiki)
I actually don't want to see my TV in 3D. Not just because I really don't watch TV, but because, who wants to sit around at home, wearing 3D glasses, watching a little Harry Potter fly out of the screen at them. I'm liable to want to slap the annoyance away.
The price that TV manufacturers will also demand of early adopters will be atrocious. That for a technology that's not mature, that will be refined, enhanced and will have much more programming available in a decade if it takes off. And who will replace all those Blu-ray discs that just replaced the old DVD ones?
No, I'll stick to Avatar in the theatres, thank you very much.
Millions of women have been given more control over their own lives. And millions of brains have been put to more productive use. Societies that try to resist this trend — most notably the Arab countries, but also Japan and some southern European countries — will pay a heavy price in the form of wasted talent and frustrated citizens.While we brag, however, we shouldn't forget how much work still remains to be done. Women continue to be locked out at the top ranks of most organizations, and continue to earn less than men for the same work. Women also carry the burden of child-rearing in our society, where the price that is paid for maternity leave is less earnings and career mobility.
Freescale Semiconductor has demoed a cool and affordable tablet, recently. No manufacturers have been named, but they can't be far behind. Check out the specs below:
in reference to:* Size: 200mm by 128mm by 14.9cm and weighing 376 grams; no need for fan or heat sink
* Processor: Freescale i.MX515 applications processor provides high performance and low power
* ARM Cortex-A8 1GHz
* OpenVG & OpenGL/ES graphics cores
* HD video decoder hardware
* Memory: 512 MB DDR2
* Display: 7-inch (1024 by 600) touch screen
* Storage: 4-64 GB internal storage; removable micro SD
* Connectivity: 3G modem (option) 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, RF4CE (option)
* Ports: USB 2.0 and USB mini (also for charging), audio in/audio out, SIM card
* Audio: speaker, microphone
* Camera: 3 Megapixel (video recording up to VGA @ 30fps)
* Battery: 1900mAh, USB charging
* Sensors: the MMA8450Q three-axis accelerometer and an ambient light sensor
* Power management IC
- An Affordable $199 Tablet for Everyone -- And It's Not From Apple - PC World (view on Google Sidewiki)
Here's the problem with our democracy. It really isn't one. It really isn't one because of you, and you and you -- you that didn't vote -- you that decided that you couldn't find the hour, once every four years, to go down to the local school, community centre or church, and cast your ballot. You, and you and you -- you're at fault for not educating yourself on the platforms of the political parties -- and the issues whose resolution is at stake. You, and you and you, who take your precious gift of a vote, and spurn it every four years. If you don't like to vote, there is a despot somewhere in the world who could use you to trample on.
Just saying, get out and vote, eh.
I fully support any campaign to end stupid laws -- especially those that hinders fundamental human rights -- that of free speech. You don't have to like what someone says, but you should fight for their right to say it, regardless of whether you agree with it or not.
in reference to:"We believe in the golden rule: that we have a right to be treated justly, and that we have a responsibility to treat other people justly. Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous."
"In this context we now publish a list of 25 blasphemous quotes, which have previously been published by or uttered by or attributed to Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Mark Twain, Tom Lehrer, Randy Newman, James Kirkup, Monty Python, Rev Ian Paisley, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Frank Zappa, Salman Rushdie, Bjork, Amanda Donohoe, George Carlin, Paul Woodfull, Jerry Springer the Opera, Tim Minchin, Richard Dawkins, Pope Benedict XVI, Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, Ian O’Doherty, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Dermot Ahern."
- Atheist Ireland Publishes 25 Blasphemous Quotes | blasphemy.ie (view on Google Sidewiki)
They are not cuddly play things -- they are in fact intelligent -- and are second only to humans (some of us, anyway). Evidence for dolphins to be considered persons: neuroanatomy; psychology; behaviour; cultural/social.
in reference to:"Marino and Reiss will present their findings at a conference in San Diego, California, next month, concluding that the new evidence about dolphin intelligence makes it morally repugnant to mistreat them. Thomas White, professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, who has written a series of academic studies suggesting dolphins should have rights, will speak at the same conference. “The scientific research . . . suggests that dolphins are ‘non-human persons’ who qualify for moral standing as individuals,” he said."
- Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons' - Times Online (view on Google Sidewiki)
It's one of the few feminist bookstores still around, and being an independent bookstore in the era of the conglomerates, it's finding itself in danger financially. Sales just aren't what they used to be. It seems like what has been afflicting feminism -- namely pop culture in the likes of Britney Spears and her ilk -- is being felt by organizations such as the TWB. This is really too bad, as the bookstore has been one of my favourites in Toronto, although since I left university, the travel to it for no good reason, has kept me away. It's too bad because of the selection it carries is ironically, more than just motivated by profit -- altruism for the cause has been the primary motivator. You'll find more independent publishers at the TWB than anywhere else. The TWB is also a haven for outreach to the feminism community (which I'm afraid doesn't include everyone of the female gender) -- running numerous courses on a variety of topics. I'm sure it's a safe place for some topics to be explored unhindered.
It's sad. The TWB is now looking for donations to stay open.
You may have noticed that I've started using Google's Sidewiki in the past few weeks. I started using it more for my own purposes at first. It allows easy posting of blog entries; and allows me to quickly annotate a site I've found, that I may wish to refer to later on. (I'm not a bookmark freak -- there are too many of them, and I can never find what I'm looking for.) I figure I could simply search Sidewiki when I'm looking for something relevant.
I wish however, that Google would further integrate Sidewiki with some of its other services. Blogger integration is nice, but only in its infancy. There is no integration with tags for instance, and the editor is basic. I'd also like to see the ability to add or edit html to Sidewiki entries -- that way, rich media or code could be added to posts. Google could also clear up some of the confusion with Notebook. I would like the ability to cross-post certain Sidewiki entries to Notebook -- and integration with Orkut would be good too. I've an Orkut account and don't use it -- why would I want to when there is no integration with anything in Orkut.
Google frustrates by creating all these services with seemingly little strategy behind them, although the post referenced below does point to some strategy that may be behind Sidewiki -- if Google will come clean with their plans.
"Some bloggers are concerned that it could divert responses from their blog posts to Google, and they are voicing their opposition. “Google is trying to take interactivity away from the source and centralize it,” says Jeff Jarvis, blogger and author of the Harper Collins book What Would Google Do? “This isn't like Disqus, which enables me to add comment functionality on my blog. It takes comments away from my blog and puts them on Google. That sets up Google in channel conflict versus me. It robs my site of much of its value.""
- Google Sidewiki: Breakthrough or Bust? (view on Google Sidewiki)
When I take the long-term view, I can see both material and social progress. But it's a struggle with pessimism in the near-term -- as globally, material progress is slow and tedious -- and social progress is just stagnant. Maybe because we've achieved so much in such a short period of time -- both materially and socially -- that it's a struggle to make the incremental progress. What served the few well to make the leap in the last few centuries, was the backs of the many -- and along the way, the many rode the tail of progress. Now however, a new mechanism of progress is needed. We can't keep doing it on the backs of the many. They won't let us. We haven't discovered the new way forward yet -- and the tools of the past are simply barbaric and shouldn't be used.
What's next?
"In the rich world the idea of progress has become impoverished. Through complacency and bitter experience, the scope of progress has narrowed. The popular view is that, although technology and GDP advance, morals and society are treading water or, depending on your choice of newspaper, sinking back into decadence and barbarism. On the left of politics these days, “progress” comes with a pair of ironic quotation marks attached; on the right, “progressive” is a term of abuse."
- The idea of progress: Onwards and upwards | The Economist (view on Google Sidewiki)
