The Tyranny of Women

In a book called "Unnatural Selection," the author, Ms. Hvistendahl, shows how, over the last few decades, science has allowed the normal balance of males and females in the human race to go haywire.

Since the 1970's, when amniocentesis became widely available, many countries (and with ultrasound today), both developing and under development, have used this process (which among other things allows a doctor to determine the gender of a child) to "weed out" girls from the population.

The normal population ratio of men to women in humans is 105 males for every 100 females.  But today in places like Azerbiajan the ration is 115 to 100, China 121 to 100, and India 112 to 100.

This is not mere speculation but simple fact.

In many places girls are "more expensive" than boys to raise to adulthood - requiring, in India for example, an expensive wedding dowry - hence the cost of allowing the girl to grow up is at least ten times more expensive than the cost of a boy.

While you might imagine that gender selection of human children is a primitive concept born thousands of years ago in caves before the dawn of human history -  you would be wrong.  Instead it would appear to have come (in the last fifty years or so) from modern Europeans and Asians as a means to control population (see this).

Another issue with all of this is that males without hope of finding a female partner tend to fall into lower social classes and criminality - unless, of course, they purchase a wife from abroad.

All of this raises other troubling questions:  If gender selection is obtained by purposeful abortion, was is the societal point of purposeless abortion?  Abortion is used disproportionally by minorities to purposely reduce their own numbers.

The only conclusion one can reasonably draw from this is that abortion is directly destroying the women it was supposedly intended to free (from the tyranny of men, I suppose), i.e., on a global scale women are using abortion to substantially reduce the population of women in the world - and they are succeeding.

This makes no sense whatsoever.

Abortion's purpose is ostensibly to free women from the tyranny of violent, brutish men who forcibly make them bear their children.

Sadly, the tyranny of women appears to be far, far worse - self destructive and worse than that of man:

- Leaving disproportionately more men in the population to conduct yet further supposed tyranny on women.

- Reducing the over all number of women choking off the value women bring to men and society.

- Destroying their own kind in furtherance of the promotion of the venerable "male heir".

- It is estimated that a statistically significant 160 plus million (yes, million) girls world wide have been removed from the population roles by this process in the last few decades - and its increasing.

For God's sake - its a girl, not a choice.

All this should be of little surprise for those that have read my post "Women are Insane, Men are Stupid".

Chemical Weapons Terrorist or Jealous Wife?

Poor Carol Anne Bond.  Her husband was cheating on her with her best friend Myrlinda Haynes and fathered a child with her.  For revenge Carol, a trained microbiologist, obtained a caustic substance and put it on her best friends car door handle, mail box, etc. in the hopes of injuring her former best friend.


The best friend got a minor burn and tried to persuade local law enforcement to act - which they did not.

So Myrlinda went to the Feds who prosecuted Bond under a federal anti-terror chemical weapons law made under an international arms treaty.


Bond cried foul and claimed that under the 10th Amendment the federal government had no right to indict her.  The 10th Amendment says: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Basically Carol claimed that the federal government had no "standing" in what was a state civil matter (potentially something like a local charge for assault or manslaughter).

Now Bond had worked hard at revenge - apparently cutting up photos of Myrlinda Hanyes and leaving threatening messages on her answering machine.  Both of which resulting in minor conviction for harassment in 2005.  When this did not work she tried 10-chloro-10H-phenoxarsine and potassium dichromate.  Hanyes was unable to get local authorities to take her concerns seriously in the matter.

Eventually Haynes told her mailman about Bond who then convinced Postal Inspectors to take video of Bond placing chemicals on Haynes's door knob and mail box.

Faced with the video evidence Bond pleaded guilty to the domestic laws associated with the chemical weapons treaty - yielding six years in a West Virgina federal prison, $2,500 USD in fines and $10,000 USD in restitution.  The appropriate aggravated assault charge in Pennsylvania where this occurred would have gotten Bond three to twenty five months in a state prison.

According to Bond's attorney's the chemical weapons statute (see this Washington Post article) "exceeded the federal government's enumerated powers, violated bedrock federalism principles guaranteed under the 10th Amendment and impermissibly criminalized conduct that lacked any nexus to a legitimate federal interest."

So why am I writing about this?

Well, for on thing it clearly draws a line between what the Federal government should be focused on and what is appropriate for individuals.

How so?

Bond's actions were of a criminal nature - she assaulted a fellow citizen.  Lacking any other federal interest in the case she should have been prosecuted under Pennsylvania law - the fact that local authorities did not take Haynes's accusations of Bond seriously not withstanding.  The Supreme Court has made this perfectly clear with this case.

Had Bond acted differently, for example terrorizing Haynes workplace, then there might have been a different outcome - but she did not do that - her focus was specifically on assaulting Haynes.

This decision opens up the courts to citizens to challenge any number of federal laws for which they (the citizens) do not feel the federal courts have "standing".

The Supreme Court did not strike down the treaty laws because Congress has the authority to make them and they should be applied in cases where someone acts as a terrorist as opposed to a common criminal.

But they do send a message to the Federal Prosecutor trying the case against Bond - the Constitution limits your reach under Federal law - criminal actions are not necessarily Federal crimes.

(This is a good thing because when little Johnny launches his home made rocket into space and accidentally hits an airplane little Johnny is a criminal, not a terrorist.)

The Supreme Court also sent a message to the Federal government making it clear that unless the Federal Government has explicit standing then it cannot unduly prosecute citizens.  Further, and perhaps most importantly, citizens who feel they are being unduly prosecuted by the Federal government also now have "standing" on their own - merely by being a citizen - to pursue a case against the Government.

This was rare unanimous decision by the court.

Missouri River Floods US Nuke

Proposed temporary cover for Fukashima #1

Nuclear problems amidst flood waters are not the sole dominion of Japan.  This last weekend rising flood waters of the Missouri River in eastern Nebraska (USA) threatened the Fort Calhoun Nuclear power plant.

The plant inflated a large inner-tube-like berm which kept the flood waters out until it, er, failed, allowing the river water to spill into the plant.  (You can see the berm working in the photos in the link below.)

Unlike Fukashima the plant's cooling systems appeared to work during the flooding (which is going to continue until they recede six or so feet).  However, the water flooded transformers and other important structures in the plant when the inner-tube was breached.

Now what's interesting is how quickly this plant will be able to restart.  Articles, such as this one, say that the plant will restart when the flood waters recede. 

Well, Duh!

That's not the question.  The question is how long after the waters recede.

The generators working to keep this plant running during the flood are fortunately not located in the basement - so perhaps this will work out for the better in the long run.

One imagines that the transforms and other important technologies used in the plant don't like to be sitting in a pool of water - just like Fukashima.

Meanwhile in Fukashima TEPCO, the plant's owner, is busy putting a temporary plastic "lid" over the reactor number one building.  This will be temporary and keep out rain water and keep in radiation.  No doubt.

Eventually, the utility says, the unit or units will need to be covered with a permanent, heavy duty cement sarcophagus like the one in Chernobyl.

Spider Man to Google...

A couple of days ago Google received a "notification" from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) indicating that it would like to investigate Google's business practices.

Google sprang to its own defense with this blog post on its web site: "Supporting choice, ensuring economic opportunity".

The post indicates that using Google, which I agree, is a choice.  Certainly there are other search engines, like Bing.com, for example, available to use.  However, as far as the FTC is concerned choice is more than just "choosing".  In the days of old Ma Bell and rotary dial phones you had a choice as well - no phone or Ma Bell's service.  Were there no other phone companies?  Of course there were - but it was hard (or impossible) to use them.  You could also choose not to use a phone at all - but I guess that was not really a choice.

I doubt the FTC, however, is all that interested in whether you choose Google or Bing when you are looking for "turnip gardening tips".

I think more likely they (the FTC) are concerned about what happens behind the scenes when you use Google.  For example, I wrote about Google and digital books in "Judge Chin to Google: Don't Be Evil".  Here Google pushes the envelop with regard to copyright ownership and the scanning of books.

Then there was "Google: Censoring your Searches" where I wrote how Google is eliminating "shallow content" from its search results.

And, last (at least for this post), but certainly not least was "Google, Trespassing for your own good".

And these are just some examples.  There are other issues as well - the whole notion of "Google Ads" seems fishy to me still - how do I know who to trust regarding a given click - is it really a competitor or is it a real lead?

According to Google's blog referenced above they are "Do[ing] what’s best for the user."  How does that jibe with, say, trespassing?  Silly me, having a full Google map of the earth is more important that my property rights.

Google also says they must "Be transparent."  So how does that jibe with ads and clicks?

The problem here, in my estimation, is that Google has become, at least as far as the FTC is concerned, a potential monopoly.  And the government rules for monopolies are not the same as those for other companies.  Pushing the limits, like with trespassing or  controlling large swathes of copyrights and royalty payments for digital books makes it appear as if the company is reckless or out-of-control with respect to the rights of others.  Something even I agree is a place for potential government intervention.

To "google" is now like to "phone" - its ubiquitous.  Even my less than computer expert friends know what "googling" is.  But they don't have the knowledge or sophistication to understand what it is that Google may or may not be doing under the covers to provide those search results - or what Google may or may not be doing with the information about the searches they are making... 

And that's the problem.

You, as the monopolist, now have responsibilities to take care of everyone the same way - not just have "don't be evil" as a slogan.  Now the government will help ensure that that is in fact the case.

Old Ma Bell found all this out the hard way over the years.  Once the queen of high tech (with Bell Labs and all the rest) she withered away to nothing in a very short period of time once the US courts allowed everyone access under her robes.

While Google is not yet in this same position it has to be careful about what it does and how it does it or soon it too will have the US government poking about under its skirts.

I guess the Spider Man comic said it best when he said "with great power comes great responsibility."

Google, its time to man up and listen to Spider Man - "don't be evil" just doesn't cut it anymore.  You are now big and bad and with that, just like for old Ma Bell, comes "great responsibility".  Responsibility to fess up on what you do wrong, to really be "transparent" with respect to "click ads" and all the rest...

Otherwise you are just fodder for bloggers like me and US government lackeys (of course, this blog is written with "Blogger" - a Google product).

Worry is for Fools!

LulzSec - The D. B. Cooper's of Hacking?

It seems to me very unlikely that the various "authorities" who are after LulzSec will find them through anything but blind luck or LulzSec's own hubris or social ineptitude.

Recently LulzSec posted documents from Arizona Department of Public Safety in a BitTorrent.

LulzSec's "Topiary," supposedly a LulzSec leader, recently allowed an interview with Gawker: "Worry is for Fools!"

The issues here are very interesting and complex.  For one thing, most corporate IT security types I know are bound by a variety of limitations:

- First of all corporate security is dictated by, well, er, corporate types.  Most companies (fortune 500) don't have their own elite teams of hackers.  They "hire out" using the recommendations of consultants and so on to dictate what they should do security-wise.

- Second, most IT platforms are safe "Windows" servers.  "Safe" because no on ever fires you for buy what everyone else uses.  However, this ties you to Microsoft software updates as far as security is concerned.  And these security updates always happen after someone is hacked and finds a "hole" that the hackers used to get in.

- Third, as you move down the corporate hierarchy from the CTO/Security Cheif down to the day-to-day security grunt in the outlying shop in Poh-Dunk Iowa you find a big loss of enthusiasm and skill.  The Poh-Dunk security guy probably  just graduated from the local IT school - he's young, inexperienced and lost.  More than likely he went to the IT school because he was not good enough hacker-wise to get a job without it or someone told him it was a good living.

- Fourth, corporations, especially large ones, tend to be bumbling in the IT area.  There is typically fairly high turnover and so there is little continuity between people and projects over time.  Patches are installed according to rigid schedules for sure, but the consequences of the patches is often broken production systems - which puts pressure on the IT types - to not put in patches.

A group like LulzSec is likely comprised of a much different sort of person:

- I would be surprised if any of the LulzSec group were over thirty or if any of them had not been using computers by age five.  This is their life and they devote all their time to it for sure.  Like the best scientist and mathematicians they do their best work when they are young.

- I would doubt they have "real jobs" or are moonlighting in the "corporate IT" world.  Instead I would guess they live at home still, or at school, and spend every waking moment on the computer hanging around in various chat rooms, plotting and trolling the internet for tidbits of information on security, hacking, access, etc.

- My guess is that they have the ability to commandeer any number of remote machines that have been taken over by various types of bots (probably stacked up ten or twenty deep) to act in their anonymous stead - more than likely those whose machines are actually host to their activities don't know it or even have a clue.  They also have access to and are on top of the vast pool of "open software" - linux and Firefox in particular - which give them the ability to have innate understanding of how sites like Sony's PS/3 network are set up.

- I suppose most importantly is they do nothing else - perhaps bathing and some personal hygiene - but that's about it.  This is their life.  Kind of like Einstein while working on General Relativity.  Its all you do.

At a personality level the LulzSec's are probably all Type A Alpha males - not what you find in the IT trenches at big corporations.  Sorry girls, but this is like high end physics and mathematics - sure some girls do it - but relatively few.

Then there is law enforcement.  I believe that in general, at a technical level, law enforcement cannot and will not ever duplicate LulzSec's IT prowess and skill.  They cannot trace their bots, network routes, and so on and probably never will.  Sure their high-end consultants can pour over network logs but, if I were LulzSec, I would have previously hacked in and checked the network logs myself for any traces I might leave.  Good luck there.

Law enforcement will, however, win because LulzSec will accidentally leave a clue outside the IT world.  Inside they are golden and have probably automated their hacking to the nth degree leaving little chance for mistakes or errors.  (Like the Phone Phreak "Captain Crunch" of old stacking up ten levels of Ma Bell's trunk lines to hid his trail these guys will have bots and hacks on law enforcements own computers involved in the theft.)  It could be arrogance, too.  Sometimes, when the exploits are beyond belief, you just need to tell someone - an almost girl friend perhaps.

But, because of their personalities their mere actions in terms of lifestyle will probably tip someone off - kind of like the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.  And this is where the police work and day-to-day grind of investigation will pay off.  Some distraught family member or former girlfriend will tip off the police somewhere in Europe or the US and that will be the beginning of the end.

Today they are right to say "Worry is for Fools!' - but that won't last because eventually someone's mom or sister will notice some disturbing parallel between their son's behavior and an FBI profile or news report.  Their automated hacker tools will leave no trace.  But very few have eluded police for high-profile crimes over a long period save for the likes of D. B. Cooper (who is probably dead anyway).

10,000 Year Clocks

Will this last 10,000 years?

Jeff Bezos, billionaire founder of Amazon.com, is working with Danny Hillis, of Connection Machine fame, to build a clock that will run for ten thousand years.

They've been working on this for some time and figures it will cost at least $42 million dollars.

While I suppose this is a laudable effort in terms of technology and ego it does not seem to me to have a good chance of success.  Typical of most modern thinkers the focus us in various technologies: elaborate drilling technologies to drill tunnels and shafts into mountains, complex escapement mechanisms, exotic materials for bearings, and so on.

The oldest living things on earth vary quite a bit: bacteria from bees encased in amber that are millions of years old, ancient creosote bushes, and the venerable 5,000 year old bristle cone pine.  These "technologies" (bacteria, plants) have been around for tens or hundreds of millions of years and have been subjected to much that the world can offer in terms of oppositions: extensions, meteor strikes, tectonic plate shifts and earthquakes.

It is less clear what the "oldest man-made structure" on earth is.  See this, for example, and this about the Yonaguni structures.

The oldest clock-work machinery (made of metal) I know of is the Antikythera mechansim I wrote about in "Death of Imagination".  The only problem is that it does not work and no one is quite sure what it did (and it is not complete, either).

Ten thousand years ago the last ice age was just ending - the seas were much shallower (as the water was tied up in glaciers).  I am sure the weather was different too.

In the last fifty thousand years there have been meteor strikes (Arizona), the Tunguska "event", earthquakes such as Krakatoa, and all manner of other events.

Today we cannot duplicate the engineering efforts used to build the pyramids, or to raise obelisks such as those used in Egypt.

However, things like the pyramid, as well as objects that are part of "Adam's Clock" are in fact time keeping devices.  The shadows they cast and their alignment with the starts work just as well as any mechanical clock to tell time.  And these devices were built by people we have no clear or accurate recollections of.

On the other hand complex devices, made of exotic materials, technologies and techniques, invite exotic problems.  And since these technologies are new, there is no depth of experience associated with them. 

Drilling holes in mountains, as any miner will tell you, is not an "exact science". 

Stone Hinge - which is arguably a "clock" - has had its parts carried away by humans of later generations - so vandalism is as likely a potential problem as anything else.  Similarly Napoleon dynamited the Great Pyramid to access the "treasure" inside - looting may also be a problem.

Don't get me wrong, if I had a spare $42 million I might be tempted to engage in such an exercise just for the hell of it.

Personally I think that building things to last 10,000 years (which is longer than any civilization, religion, oral or written human history) is mostly a waste of, ironically, time and money.

I do not thing "greatness" (whether its "technical prowess" or "fame" or whatever) comes from purposefully doing this type of thing.  Stone Hinge or the Great Pyramids were not built for fame or fortune I would suspect - but for religious glory or other, more ethereal, purposes - though no doubt a great ego (as well, perhaps, a great force) was necessary to catalyze the process and keep it going.

If all were to go according to plan, the clock will tick away in an inaccessible mountain for ten millennia unseen and unnoticed by humanity - so, like a tree falling in a forest with no one around, does it still make noise?  If people do access it over any serious length of time, it will more than likely be vandalized or looted for parts and materials, I think.

Oh well - perhaps Bezos should read "Titan" by Ron Chernow about the life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., the founder of Standard Oil.  Much of the book discusses how Rockefellers son, who did not follow in his father's business footsteps, spent much of his life working on giving away his fathers millions in some form or other of charity - hospitals, research, and so on - much of that charity still exists in some form today.

Hey Jeff - they sell "Titan" on Amazon...

How's That Tobacco Settlement Coming?

(Blogger is broken again as far as linking images but here is a link for this article...)

In 1998 a landmark deal was struck between states and tobacco companies.  The tobacco companies agreed to pay $200 billion dollars (in 1998 dollars) to the states that are part of a "master agreement".

The purpose of this money is ostensibly to reimburse states for the cost of treating smokers.

However, things have worked out somewhat differently...

For one thing the agreement allows the tobacco companies to reduce their payments based on declining market conditions, i.e., the fewer cigarettes people buy the fewer dollars the tobacco companies have to pay.  This seems reasonable considering the purpose of the agreement, among other things, was to reduce the amount of smoking.

The longer the payments run the less value the states will receive because of inflation.

However, municipal greed and stupidity have created some additional difficulties here.

For one thing, many states, rather than take the payment stream from the tobacco companies, opted for securitizing these payments (see the TSA website as an example).  This means that the states sold bonds to investors.  The proceeds of the bond sales were immediate cash in the state's pockets (just think of J. G. Wentworth like you see on TV for a state government).  In return the states agreed to divert future tobacco settlement payments to pay the bond holders over time - at a premium of course.  (More information here.)

But declining tobacco revenue means that the states have less money today because cigarette sales are declining, tax free cigarette sources such as Indian Reservations have eaten into big tobacco sales, and E-cigarettes (see my posts in "Nicotine, Nazi's and Magical Thinking").

So now, as cigarette sales decline, states are faced with potential bond defaults.

The poorest are typically smokers.  And these municipal bonds, based on and sold to investors as investments in future "settlement payments", are merely shackles binding the smokers to investors.  Almost as a kind of slavery or indentured servitude.

According to most cigarette smoking is an addiction - a dirty, nasty one that many have worked decades on - both in terms of smoking as an addiction and in terms of making smoking "evil".  So how can states in good conscience, sell bonds to investors based on the poor continuing to do evil smoke?  Particularly when the poorest citizens pay the bulk of the cost (both in terms of cost and state taxes).

To me this is no different than a state funding brothels or heroin sales with bonds directly.

Greed by states, municipalities and others associated with the settlement seems to trump all forms of ethics - directly profiting from the misfortune (smoking) of others.

And another dirty little state secret is that the proceeds from selling the bonds is more than likely to be used as part of general funds rather than for anything related to smoking.  Certainly all involved would like you to think that settlement is in some way to benefit the health of former smokers - but this is not the case.

Things like cigarette sales for Indian Reservations will now be sucked into the vortex of panic created by the decline in cigarette sales revenue - who cares if the Reservations are sovereign nations with rights?  Damn! The cigarette settlement money is going south and someone needs to pay...

So why not screw the Indians again?

The same for E-cigarettes - something that appears to mitigate most of the issues created by smoking.  No doubt as the black hole of debt expands these too will be pulled in to help fund the difference.

So we can thank the government that what was just a direct health problem faced by the users of a specific product (cigarettes) has now expanded to include not only smokers but also bond holders, investors, state governments, investment companies, the poor, Indian Reservations, and God know who else.

How is this better?

Thanks, government, for making this worse.

The Long Reach of the Law(yers)...

The reach of the "law" into everyday affairs is becoming a crisis.

For example, consider the case of Righthaven, which I wrote about before (see current information here) as well as the the "Nude Nuns" case (see my post here).  In both cases the question of "how far in" can the law reach and can that reach be commercialized.

In another case the Mayo Clinic is trying to prevent Prometheus Laboratories Inc. from patenting a process that in involves observing how the human body reacts to drugs.  Mayo argues that the observation of a natural process - your body processing a drug - is a purely natural phenomena and cannot be patented.

The real questions involve the meaning of "ownership" in the case of nebulous items.  (Clearly there can be questions of ownership over even simple, concrete things, say, like a cup or a stick.) When cases involve rights or downloads or "fair use" as well as ownership things become even less clear - with the issues of patenting "natural" things like DNA or human bodily functions at the extreme end.

The reason for all of these issues today, I believe, stem from the the Supreme Court ruling in Bates v. Arizona State Bar 433 U.S. 350 from 1977.  This ruling allowed lawyers and law firms to advertise publicly for the first time in the 1970's.

Prior to this lawyers did not advertise but instead relied on professional contacts, word of mouth, recommendations, and so forth to attract clients.  Advertising was considered "crass" and was typically strictly forbidden by state Bar associations.  Lawyers were assumed to have a good client list based on their good reputations.

Money, success and business were derived from holding yourself (as a lawyer) to the highest standards in order to build a sterling reputation.  Since lawyers take an oath as representatives of the court this made sense - you can't have the court (and the neutrality of "justice") up for sale based on the highest bidder or on who can run the most egregious ads.

My how things have changed.

Bates started off with good intentions - the case was over the right to advertise low cost legal services - low cost divorce, etc. by a couple of lawyers in Arizona.  Eventually the case reached the Supreme Court where it was decided that advertising by lawyers was "commercial free speech" and therefore it could not be limited under state law or by Bar associations.

Today, lawyers advertising coupled with the fact that typical fee structures involved the lawyer's fee being paid out of whatever proceeds are garnered (typically at a rate of 30% or so), there are no limits to what a lawyer can sue over.

In the case of patents, its even more egregious with patenting of DNA sequences and the like.  Large companies with huge legal staffs can wear down any small-time operator that attempts to challenge the big concerns turf.

Just because you can does not mean you should...

Sadly I do not see lawyers putting the "genie" back into the bottle anytime soon.

One would imagine that anyone taking an oath as a officer of the court would necessarily limit themselves regarding the taking advantage of others and the "system" - but this is simply not true today.

Things like copyright trolling and other activities will only grow as the pool of potential legal liability grows.   While Righthaven is now losing - because of standing issues - don't expect it to be the last trolling case.  Other, more efficient lawyering outfits will figure out better approaches to extract fees and settlements from the unsuspecting.  (In the case of Righthaven some who paid settlement fees are now contemplating counter suits.)

The digital age is changing how things work and the law is not keeping up the pace - and because of this unscrupulous lawyers are taking advantage of those who are less technologically sophisticated or who are simply unfortunate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Road to Education - Closed

Twelve percent (yes, 12%) of American high school students have a firm grasp of US History according to the Department of Education's National Assessment of Progress Test for 2010.  A mere two percent (2%) have any idea what Brown vs. Board of Education is about.

So what do those thousands of dollars I pay in "school taxes" each year buy our children?

Apparently not very much useful - at least in the way of education.

Then there is my "Road Closed" road.  Several weeks ago a crappy repair made a couple of years ago failed and the outside curve sagged and started to fall off into the farmer's field.  Initially there was a "Road Closed" sign installed by the highway workers.

I passed by the initial installation of the sign on my morning jog - one of the workers was talking to someone that had stopped to ask a question about the closure, one was on his cell phone, one was in the truck that had brought the sign doing karaoke along with the radio.

For the last few years I have been paying a couple hundred dollars a year in "Road Tax".

I wondered if this is what I was getting for my money.

Then, of course, no work on the road occurred - though many people drove over the collapsing road.  The road crews, stymied by people's lack of adherence to the signage posted a cop nearby to arrest those that ignored the sign.  After a time that failed to stop the interlopers so a large backhoe was placed across the road.

This apparently did not stop the bikers from riding around the back hoe so, as of today, the road crew as ripped a six foot or so section of the road out, leaving about a one foot drop between each edge.   But this doesn't stop the runners...

The "running lady" who passes by my house in the evening seem undaunted by the recent modifications to the road.  We passed her on her way toward the closure one evening.  We were headed to the store.  After circumnavigating the detour there she was - passed the dug up road section as if by magic.

So, instead of, gasp, fixing the road as one would foolishly imagine a road crew would do we instead have the road crew at war with the users of the road.

What will be next, machine gun nests?  Mines? Marines?

(Simply placing an active sobriety check point near the spot would certainly keep everyone away.)

Given the current state of financial stress for municipalities and states one begins to wonder about the focus of these institutions.  Its almost as if, for example, the road crew's activities (vacations, wrk rules, pensions, health care, etc.) are more important than their actual job, i.e., fixing the road.  Similarly for teachers.

(Certainly on the news no one ever talks about, say, the quality of work some agency is doing.  They only talk about the pension for those working in the agency.)

While I am certain states are required to contribute, for example, to various pension programs it seems as if this is beginning to trump the actual doing of the work for the state.  That is, given a shortfall of money to we contribute that money to the pension of the road worker or to the road work?

Isn't there a law that tells the road department that they have to work on the road?

Why does the state need a karaoke singer in the three man crew to put up a sign?

How does 12% of the student body learn history while the rest do not?  Is it being taught in such a way so only 12% understand it?  Is it not being taught at all in traditional school settings and only the home-schoolers are teaching it?

And how, in today's politically correct atmosphere where every syllable is endlessly parsed for "racism", can but 2% of the population know what Brown vs Board of Education is for?  Is this lack of teaching of the history of "racism" in and of itself a "racist" act?

The bottom line here is that the mandated by law product (educated children, repaired roads) has been replaced with maintenance of lifestyle of those who are supposed to produce the product in the first place.

Flower

My other half and I were visiting a friend the other day.

Our friend has a PlayStation/3 video game console and he's always got interesting new games that he finds to show us.  This time he had something called Flower.

This is a very unique and unusual video game.

For background I am not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination.  I missed the game boom for the most part of a couple of reasons - I lived in a rural area where there were none, I was born too early and did not live in a family that was apt to connect something like a Pong to their TV. 

My other half loves games - particularly puzzle games of various sorts including those with intricate interactions.  Hardly a day goes by when her computer is not emitting some sort of squeak or pop, or a small voice is not calling out for some reason, because of a game.

My kids also loved video games and played all sorts of them starting in the days of Sega.

My friend is also a gamer with interests much like my wife in terms of the types of games - though he is also a big fan of sports games.

None of us are into shooting games like Halo and its ilk.

At any rate, Flower is very, very simple and elegant.

You, the "player", are a single flower petal.  You are blown by a breeze around beautiful fields and landscapes.  Your "goal" is to pass nearby flowers that have not yet bloomed in order to cause them to bloom.  When they bloom, one of their petals joins you on your flight.  You can "steer" your petal by waving the controller around (it uses accelerometers to detect how you are waving and pointing it).

The catch here is that the "landscape" and the "environment" (music, sounds, etc.) is very relaxing and peaceful - its a sunny day, beautiful clouds in the sky, green grass, gentle breeze.  The only tricky part of the game is finding the other flowers to pass by - if you miss some you have to go back (with the help of the game).

Everything moves very smoothly and slowly along at the pace of a gentle breeze. 

While it may not sound appealing from my inadequate description it really is.  Went spent a long time (probably over an hour) fooling with this.

Its sort of cross between some sort a bio-feedback relaxation machine and video game.

Nothing is "urgent" about how you steer or move about, there is no danger or death, no complex puzzles (at least in the demo we were playing).  You don't tense up doing it - you don't get frustrated.

All in all a very relaxing way to spent some time with a video game.

"Money For Nothing..."

Debt as a Percentage of GDP (2010) Wikipedia

I have to say that its totally fascinating to watch the events in Greece unfold.

Here's a country with a huge sovereign debt which it cannot realistically repay (in 2009 Greece had a debt equal to about 125% of its GDP or some half trillion Euros).   Yet here are Greek youths and government workers out in the street beating on the police because of new government "Austerity Measures" - an effort by the Greek government to make some realistic cutbacks and payments on this debt.  (Click on the image at the right to zoom in and see Greece's debt.)

Over the last few decades Greece's economy has been growing - but not as fast as the efforts of its citizenry to cheat the country of revenue through a variety of means.

So now, with the country in effective default, the citizenry literally takes up arms against the government because the government is planning to reduce the benefits available to the citizenry.

Never have the Dire Straits lyrics "Money for Nothing, and Your Chicks for Free" had more meaning - except its no longer the 1980's.  Yet the Greek MTV and subsequent generation does not like the prospect of life without "money for nothing..."

So what's a 30 year old Greek undergraduate to do?  No more free tuition, free housing, free food, no more freedom to live off the credit of Greece in banks around the world.

Now, I would think that it should be clear to the Greek people that if their economy goes under the value of all the free tuition, food, benefits and so forth would simply go away - there would be no jobs, no opportunity, and, most importantly, no future.  No future to use that partially completed college degree for.

So what are they rioting for?  More debt?

I guess it would seem so - clearly they do not want to stop living as they have been - so no other conclusion is possible.

The problem is that much of the Greek debt is held by European banks - after all, who would have thought that a sovereign nation would be irresponsible and not pay its debts?  These European banks have their credit ratings tied up with this debt - hence a default by Greece may well lead to their own default.  And many countries, like France, have so many banks with so much Greek debt that they themselves may in turn face a financial crisis.

Now, interestingly, Greek ranks 22nd out of the 192 or so countries in the world in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI - where higher ratings mean a longer life expectancy, better food, living conditions, and so on).  The rest of the world's HDI looks like this:

HDI by Country (Greener = Better, Orange, Red, Black = Worse)

What's interesting here when comparing the above map to the one at the top of the post is that in general the higher the HDI the higher the debt.

So, one could conclude that HDI is acquired by borrowing money.

But borrowing money from whom?

Certainly not central African countries which themselves have no debt.  No, instead it would seem that the borrowing to create a high HDI comes from borrowing money from other high HDI countries.

In fact, upon reflection, its like a giant sovereign Ponzi scheme.  Greece can borrow from other countries to create a fabulous standard of living for itself without having the means to repay.  Of course they make interim payments so that it looks like they are solvent - but in the end they don't have the goods to pay - and their kind-hearted citizenry spits on their own countries obligations to others.

Sadly, the next dupes on the "money for nothing" list, France, stand to lose their collective shirts should Greece default.  Most other countries want to further extend Greece's obligations.  But France, face with its own potential default in the face of a Greek default - sees the writing on the wall - and wants to make them (the Greeks) eat their own debt...

The most striking revelation to me is that the wonder of advanced "human development" seems so tied up with sovereign Ponzi schemes - the US, with one of the highest HDI's - has unfunded debt obligations on par with Greece - as do many other high HDI countries.

Now the most interesting thing about all of this is the color of Asia (China, Russia) in the top map.

No debt- at least as compared to the the high HDI countries.

Now, as well as borrowing between each other, HDI nations also owe China big money (a trillion in sovereign debt the case of the USA alone, for example).

So good old China busily monkeys about with its currency so that it owes no high HDI country money while effectively creating huge account receivables (in foreign trade) with the rest of the world while simultaneously loaning them money so they can buy yet more Chinese goods at inflated prices.

When the debt sh*t hits the fan in the rest of high HDI countries and the defaults start to topple their economies like dominoes where will China be?

In charge, of course, holding trillions of world debt and receivables which it will collect on when the chips are down.  Since their own economy is not bound up in foreign debt (well, it is, but since they are owed receivables on trade and own sovereign debt in 90% of the rest of the world they will be in a good position to collect (and, after all, they do have an army, satellites, nuclear weapons, and all the rest...).

Gosh, wouldn't it be nice if our government and citizenry thought like the Chinese instead of the Greeks?  But no, just look at Wisconsin, Governor Walker, and the Greek-like demonstrations about debt this past winter.  This is just a preview of the future - debt riots over money for nothing.

Perhaps those loans on expensive college degrees could be paid off by working in China...?

Perhaps those teachers in Wisconsin (my home state) should be teaching the kiddies Chinese instead of how to draw mocking pictures of Governor Walker - then perhaps they will have a real future.

Are You Part of the "Information Caste" System

 I have been reading articles that suggest that, as you get older, you become a "technophobe" - someone who dislikes technology.  Certainly for some people this is true - you see ads on TV for cell phones for older people that don't have all the whiz-bang nonsense attached - just a plain old cell phone with big numbers.

I think that older people are less likely to buy things like HD TV, use computers and so on as well.

But I think that just saying its because of age is disingenuous.

Older people I know - in their 60's, 70's and 80's - tend to have other justifications or reasons as well.  For example, I have an older aunt in her eighties that just had her cable TV removed and replaced with a regular TV antenna (and a new digital coverter box).  Why?  Because the cable TV removed the local public TV stations.

A lot of older people I know also still have only regular TV's connected to antennas.  They "don't need" all the channels of cable.

So what does this say?  For one thing, I think, people in this mindset are missing out on the world around them.  Today there is much less information presented on "regular TV" - its more distributed on the internet, cable TV, and so on. 

I think this is a key point.

The world is much more complex than the world I grew up in, and that world, with space rockets, satellites, and trips to the moon, was far more complex than the world my parents grew up in.  My great grandmother was born before 1900 and lived on a farm with a horse drawn cart, no running water, no electricity or phone, and so on.

I think that the world has progressed in a fashion which requires you to consume more information just to keep abreast of what's going on.  The internet or cable TV are conduits for this information and if you eliminate them from consideration you get much different and, I think, much less information. 

In the old days Walter Cronkite summarized the state of the world in 30 minutes for many of the people in the country.  Today, there is is too much information for this to occur - yet people cling to this old format.

What's interesting is what gets left off if I watch, say, only the 30 or 60 minutes of nightly news?

I think a lot - in fact - a dangerous, or perhaps, an irresponsible amount.

With all of the conduits for information available you now see in places like the middle east things such as Facebook being used to conduct whole sale revolution within a country like Egypt.

How do you explain to someone who does not know what Facebook is what is going on?

Similarly I have written about copyright "trolls" and how they are changing the face of society - how do you explain this to someone who does not understand the internet or what it does?

You also have to wonder how people without this kind of information can make informed decisions.

I think the problem is is that they cannot make informed decisions - for example - when they vote or serve on a jury in all but the simplest cases.

And that's troubling.

Of course, there is a flip side to this coin.  The younger generation, constantly assaulted by video, text and other "streaming" or "push" content from the clouds and beyond, has I think too much information.  Much of what they see is irrelevant to the state of the world in any responsible sense - does it really matter what Lady Gaga is wearing today?

To this generation most bits of information fall like rain drops on an umbrella - scattering around on the floor beside them - lost to their perception.  Whether important or not.

And this new generation is sadly subjected to informational content mixed with a high percentage of ad content - how do they know the difference?  Can they even tell what's an ad and what's a hard fact?

In my experience they cannot.

What's needed is a model for sorting information - what's relevant to me, my future, my child, and so on from whatever else there is - either having too much (in the case of the young) or having too little (by choice of the old).

Without this our society will simply be overrun with information - good, bad and indifferent.

It will create classes of people who, by choice or chance, will have their lives dictated by what stratum of information they live in - those with no input, with commercial input, with mobile input, and so on.  These classes of people will not be able to comprehend what the other class is thinking because they will not have the shared experience or the tools to process it.

So, like the caste system of India, your life and future will be dictated by the "information caste" in which you live.

When you think about it there is very little mobility between castes in this system - few older people, for example, devouring technology and few young people shunning it (know any younger kids that watch only the big three network stations, only have a dial phone, and only listen to the radio?)

And, given this limitation on what type of information you "see" on a day-to-day basis, how is your thinking limited...??

Class 5 Gelatinous Mass

Kukla, Fran and Ollie

As a dog owner (with four in the house) I can say that we have a lot of experience with what I will call "Class 5 Gelatinous Masses".  I will not go into too many details here but let's just say that these can come from either end when you least expect it and, when they do, its a big cleanup problem.   While our little "R2" is not much in the way of a problem the larger dogs (up to the 120 pound "Kylie") can really generate a difficult to clean-up mess.

(Wait - who ate that nice sun-dried mole from the driveway!  Oh oh - there it is on the kitchen floor after someone was hiding it in their stomach all day...)
Old Mugs, who I have written about here before, was bad about producing lesser class masses when we first got him - but due to improvements in diet and health he is no longer a problem - though I learned a lot about cleanup with him.

Realistically I would not have expected anyone to be interested in solving the associated cleanup problems with a "Class 5" incident.  However with SWITL there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel:



The most interesting thing is that it pick up that kind of mess and put it down somewhere else undisturbed.

(Imagine the instructional value of wisking that ugly food mess right off your child's plate from dinner, placing it in a container for overnight safe keeping in the fridge, and then being able to replace the mess right back on the plate exactly as it was in the morning...  without worries that dogs or others will intervene in the mean time.)

Now apparently there are a lot of other problems in the world which are "similar" - which is surprising.

I myself have invented numerous disposable tools to handle these sorts of jobs.  For example, cutting a paper plate in half so that it leaves a nice sharp edge is one good approach.  You can use the two halves to scoop up a most of a Class 5 fairly easily without having to pick it up, shall we say, manually.

I have also invented what I will call a "sh*t puppet".  This harkens back to the days of "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" and the original "Sheri Lewis" Lamb Chop.  Basically I use a long, thin plastic newspaper bag - the kind they use to keep your newspaper dry from the rain, as well, a sort of "hand puppet".

The convenient shape allows one to slip it over their hand and pick up very large semi-sold gelatinous masses without getting one's hands dirty.

One merely needs to be careful not to select a bag with a hole in it.

At any rate I am not sure what technology is involved with the SWITL video but I would assume there is some sort of magic associated with the surface of the "tongue" that shoots out.  I guess something with it and the shape of how it moves that allows it to pick things up undisturbed.

While I cannot see a big market in restaurants for this it might be handy for those with dogs, cat, children or other pets what like to make ugly messes.

More Patent Trolling

As an Apple developer I have been reading about a case by a company called Lodsys against some Apple and Google app developers.  Apps are the programs you download to your Android, iPhone or iPad from the Google or Apple store.

At issue is US Patent 7,222,078 - "Methods and Systems for Gathering Information from Units of A Commodity Across A Network" (December 10, 2003).

Basically the term "Commodity" here is used to describe something like a hand held computing device, e.g., SmartPhone or Tablet.  The wording of this patent is very clunky and weird - no doubt to masquerade the fact that the patent is really not very innovative or new and so as to get it past the examiner.

The gist of it is (claim #1) that you interact with the commodity (computer) via a UI which collects information about your perception of it and (claim #4) that you use the UI to control "features" of the commodity.

How this is different than purchasing software from an online company like Amazon, say, via a laptop or gaming console, over a WiFi, is well beyond me.   Clearly the laptop is the "commodity" and the software you buy to install on it is a "feature" of it - the web browser the UI.   And this is something that has gone on for at least the last 20 years or so.  (Patents cannot cover something in the "public domain" - they must cover something new and unique - how is this unique in any way?)

The trick here is that this patent is 90 pages of incomprehensible gobbledy-gook to say what I said in a couple of sentence aboves.  The fear of Apple and Google would be to have to somehow prove in court that what I said was in fact the case.

Lodsys would appear to be a patent troll as I have written about before - focused on using this particular patent to extract a toll from big companies like Apple and Google.  The twist here, however, is that as an Apple developer Apple licenses you access to their software API - the calls your program makes to do specific things on a device like an iPhone.

Inside this API is access to what Lodsys is complaining about.  Now, Apple itself has a license from Lodsys.  However, its developers apparently are not covered by this according to Lodsys. 

Apple relies on the developers for products for its "App Store".

Lodsys is now going after Apple's (and Google's) developers (see this blog post) claiming they are violating its patent.

There are already lawsuits against specific developers in this regard.  And, as a result of these suits, Apple is stepping in.

Sadly at issue here is, as I have said before, specific and detailed parsing of technology and law that has gotten way out of control.   Purchasing an App, at least on the iPhone, looks too me just like going to Amazon or anywhere else and buying some piece of software that I can download, install and use on my laptop.  Not news in any way shape or form - an industry worth billions and billion that's been around for 20 years at this point.

What's missing in the patent system is the concept of "equivalence" - what makes something "like" or "not like" something else.

In particular it should not be language as it is, I believe, here.

I have several patents as well as active applications.  Patents are supposed to cover something new - hence in general they should be fairly short and to the point - unlike this one.  The gist of what is going on should also be clear - in clear language and using standard terms - unlike this one.

The trick here, as I have said, was to use obfuscation to patent something obviously in the public domain.  Then to make it difficult for others, like Apple or Google, to beat in patent court where the standards are more complex than normal (for example, you'd have, in this case, to start out by proving that, say a laptop, was the "Commodity" in the patent).  The owner would argue that that was not the "original intention" - and your off to the races for a decade.

The US Patent system worked well in the age of mechanical blade razors where a prototype was required along with the invention.  It would be much less difficult for a examiner to be fooled with something like this.

Today technology, technological nomenclature, and all the rest are so complex and specialized that its a wonder anything in regards to patents in this area works at all.

One More XCode 4 Nit

Okay, so I have split my XCode 4 project into another branch and now use 3.2.6 for the new branch as I explained in the last post on this subject.

Today I am busy reworking some files in the XCode 4 project into a set of common files shared between an iOS build and a Mac OS X.

In my various projects currently each type of project has its own source files in its respective project folder.

I am now making some of these files common to both types of project.  This means taking file "foo.c" from the XCode 4 project folder where it currently resides and putting it into a common folder, say "common/foo.c" - which is outside the XCode 4 project tree.

To do this I remove the file from the XCode 4 project, then copy the file into the common folder, and finally put the file back into the XCode 4 project from the new location - and no I do not use the Copy check box when it puts it back in, that way it should use the file from the new location.  I also do not delete the original file (just remove the reference) because in case I have problems or need to make a demo I still want the file available.

Rebuilding in XCode 4 at this point, however, does not use the "foo.c" from the new location - nope - it still uses the old "foo.c" from the old location in the XCode 4 project folder - even though I removed the old one from the XCode 4 project.

Sadly this does not seem to happen all the time - just some times.

Pleaae Apple - let's get this to work right!

More XCode 4 Woes...

So I need to make a copy of a current iOS XCode 4 project - basically I just need to copy an entire development folder to another, new one, rename the project and output .APP, just so I can do an integration with some modules off the main development trunk.

Seems simple enough right?

So I foolishly copy the XCode4 project folder to another one.  Diddle about renaming some things in the finder (like the project file).  Then I go to build it.

Kaboom!

It won't build because its trying to build an Intel-64 bit version for Mac OS X.

I did not change anything in the development environment - nothing.

No luck.

So I'm off Googling and what do I find?  XCode 4 basically doesn't do much of anything besides create a new project and develop in it - apparently no one else has had any luck trying to make a copy of the project folder either.

This makes no good sense but I bet I know why it fails.  The new XCode 4 stuff fiddles about in places besides your build folder - in fact the default is to put all the build stuff out in the ~/Library/Developer/XCode somewhere - with links via some voodooesque mystery buttons and links.  So my guess is that when you copy the folder somewhere else it breaks these links.

(There are all these file name that start out with your project name and are followed by jibberish: sq_lvm-gnqocbrogklyhegskqgmgqqodfkn - for example (I'm not kidding) - I feel like its 1985 and I'm playing Zork.  So no doubt there is bad juju involved with changing the name of the sq_lvm project I have if there's a couple of hundred K of monkey business (indexes for something) in this folder.)

Of course you would image that a cleaning would re-do it - but no...

So back to 3.2.5 and all its flaky problems.  Thankfully the 3 and 4 work off the same project file so no problems there.

But come on Apple - you're in such a hurry for each new version that you're screwing the development base.

So now I'm on 3.2.5 which has debugger flakiness - like all the break disabling on EXE launch.

While I type 3.2.6 is busy installing in the background - asking me to turn off iTunes so it can install.

God knows why it cares but....

I can only hope 3.2.6 will work better.

The sad part is that as far as actual coding goes XCode 4 is absolutely great.  The compiler sort of runs while you are typing and checks things (a bit to vigorously while I'm still typing on a given line but I guess that will improve - it should wait longer before complaining).  GCC LLVM 4.2 is very fast and everything works quite well.  The the XCode 4 development platform part that really bites.

I also don't like the confusing "Schemes" and other things like it it uses.

Well, 3.2.6 just tink-tinked me telling me the install finished.

Sadly I don't see the 3.2.6 debugger working right either so I guess I am just f*cked.

(Oh Geez! - I fixed my debug problems!  The ding dongs at Apple swapped [CMD] R and however you run your non-debug and debug executable files from the development environment.  XCode 4 runs debug the way 3 runs non-debug and vice versa as far as keyboard commands are concerned.   So my fingers and lower spine are typing the run command in 3 that runs non-debug because in 4, which I've been using for months, it runs the debug version...)

Thanks Apple...

Upgrading iTunes and Entitlements...

On my development machine I suddenly get this message when I go to rebuild one of my iPhone apps:  "The executable was signed with invalid entitlements. The entitlements specified in your application’s Code Signing Entitlements file do not match those specified in your provisioning profile.
(0xE8008016)."

Huh?  Entitlements?

I have a demo in the next hour or so and now I cannot install my iPhone app because of "entitlements".

(Thanks Apple.  While its great you are doing all of this neat stuff for the world how about some mercy on  Joe Average developer?  New development environment and iOS releases appear every three months or so jammed with a million tiny gotchas that make a developer life frustrating.  I run off-the-shelf XCode and iOS development stuff - I change nothing and run the apps and tools "as-is" off the developer site.  Sadly for me, I also use iTunes on the same machine - which gets upgraded about once a week - often causing weird, flaky interactions with the development environment and devices.)

I think back - what's changed since the problem began?

(Long ago I learned this is the key question in any computer situation.)

Well, iTunes told me it was going to upgrade itself - specifically for the new iPhone push/cloud nonsense.  That happened a few hours ago...  now what?

I quick search of StackOverflow yields lots of posts like this one.  Lot's of developers complain about this but little in the way of solutions is immediate obvious.  Then, after a frantic 30 minutes, I triangulate on these steps:

1. In the File Menu, select New File -> iPhone OS -> Code Signing -> Entitlements. Name the file “Entitlements.plist" and click ‘Finish’. This creates a copy of the default entitlements file within the project.

2. Select the new Entitlments.plist file and uncheck the “get-task-allow” property. Save the Entitlements.plist file.  (In XCode 4 this does not work right.  You do not see anything like "get-task-allow" in the plist editor - it shows something unrelated.  You have to open it as text in some outside editor in which case you see it as a plist dictionary entry with a true tag.  You have to edit this to false.)

3. Go to the developer portal, re-create the provisioning for the device with a new name.  (It will crap out after a couple of minutes saying it failed.  But if you look under the tab where you can see existing profiles the new one will be there after all.  More frustration and thrashing.  Thanks again Apple!)

I think the Apple provisioning site is wedged because you have to rebuild with a new provisioning profile if you upgrade to the latest iTunes - but that's just my personal speculation.  Somehow "get-task-allow", iTunes 10.3.1.(55), and XCode 4 require this.

4. Delete the old provisioning from the device manually (Settings -> General -> Profiles) and remove it from "Provisioning" section of the "Organizer" in XCode 4.

5. Stick the Entitlements.plist file into the project at the top level - right before any folders with code.

6. Rebuild.

The iTunes upgrade was to 10.3.1 (55) - I run a fully updated 10.6.7 generic development machine.

The devices (iPad, iPhone) are generic off-the-shelf devices, no jailbreaks, fully upgraded to the latest version of iOS (4.3.3 8J2 on the iPhone, 4.3.3 8J3 on the iPad).

The Cost of New Human Rights...

According to this UN document Internet access is now a "Human Right."

Oh my...

I thought smoking crack was illegal - but apparently at the UN they can still get away with it.

And, as if that's not enough, from page #9:

"The Special Rapporteur is of the view that the arbitrary use of criminal law to sanction legitimate expression constitutes one of the gravest forms of restriction to the right, as it not only creates a “chilling effect”, but also leads to other human rights violations, such as arbitrary detention and torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

I can't wait to see them lining up at the local prison to file lawsuits: "where's my child porn!"  "I need to post pictures of my personal body art!"  And next little Johnny, UN Report in hand, will point out to the principal that the school is violating his human rights by preventing him from surfing porn in computer class.

Now I've always wondered about "human rights."

Some seem completely obvious: the right to being you, to practice your own religion, that all men are created equal.  This sort of thing is covered well in the US Constitution, for example, in the "Bill of Rights."

The claim for these is that they are given to man by the creator (or, if you don't believe in that, then I suppose they are granted from somewhere else... society? the moon? evolution? I don't know.)

At any rate these are things you are "born with" where ever they come from.

But then there are other claims to "rights" - I guess those you aren't born with.

Things are a little unclear to me hear.  I often hear that "health care," for example, is a human right.  Now, like "Internet Access," this implies a lot.  If you have a "right" to something that is produced by society that's different than having an innate right, such as to your own religion, which is not produced by society.

To supply health care society needs things - like supplies, workers (and their food, shelter, etc.), and so on.  Does "your right to health care" require these people to be employed, have jobs, to service you regardless (say you are a mass murderer), etc.

Now let's say that there is a US economy of 15 trillion USD per year.  Given about 330 million people in the US that's about $45,000 USD per person of "economy" that's produced - each individual contributes that much to the total on average.  Of course, many produce nothing or are a drain on society, but others produce much more.

Government in the 2011 US economy consumes about 25% of that $45K, or about $11,250 USD.

Health care, at one sixth of the US economy, consumes about $7,500 USD.

All together this is about 42% of the $45,000 USD per person.

This leaves you, after your society costs, about $26,000 USD a year or about $2,160 USD per month as your "share" of the economy.

SO to break even then, a two person household must generate "revenue" within the economy of about $90,000 USD per year just to break even.

Now if you add on another $15 trillion in debt (such as the US has) that's another $90,000 in "obligation" for each two person household (the debt being equal to a years worth of GDP).

So now, to get out of debt and back on track each two person household has to contribute $180,000 to the GDP just to stay even and out of debt.

In today's world health care (such as it is) and the Internet are part of the $180,000 contribution people make because they are already part of the economy - at least for people who chose to use them.

But this UN stuff requires everyone have the "right" to access it. 

So unless you take away from those with Internet access already (make them time share, have a slower connection, whatever), you are going to add to the $180,000 USD per year obligation of everyone in the US.

Ditto for all the other "rights" you are not born with.

Seems to me that caring an unsecured $180,000 debt around  (plus whatever you might personally owe for a mortgage, etc) is a bad thing and making that debt larger is just plain stupid.

This debt was run up in the last decade or so, so things like infrastructure (say the US Interstate system), are already paid for.  Our debt, then, would be for spurious, uncontrolled spending on what?  Housing?  Who knows...?

When I am born do I have a "right" to be burden with this obligation I did not create?

Don't I have a "right" not to be born into slavery (in this case debt slavery)?

I think the UN should not be in the business of creating more obligations in a world where its pretty clear we are already $180,000 USD in the hole (I know its different in other countries).

Attractive Nuisances and Copyright Felonies

Our beloved government, in the form of this bill, intend to make the "performance" of a copyright-infringing video a federal felony.

Now its not clear what a "performance" is from this - but let's assume that its watching the video at home - say in front of a group of kids.  Now that latest Lady GaGa video scooped off the pirate server could (will?) land Mommy, Daddy, little Jr., and all his friends in Federal Court.  But don't worry - you have to watch it ten or more times before its a felony under this bill.

Of course, you or little Jr. could have emailed that link to 10 friends who watched it - or posted it on your blog and ten readers watched it...

What are they smoking?

Copyright law is such a complete sham its hard to imagine.

Effectively copyrights go on forever these days - funny how "Happy Birthday" - a public song that first appeared around 1912 or so (see Wikipedia for more details here) was later copywritten in 1935.  The copyright is currently set to expire in 2030.

As you can see from this link copyright has gone from 14 years with a 14 year renewal to 75 years or the life of the author plus 50 years - effectively making copywritten material copywritten forever.  And, no doubt when large media companies see these copyrights running low in 15 or 20 years it will be extended again.

The real problems have started with the recent criminalization of some aspects of copyright law.

Now little Jr., blissfully ignorant of copyright law, can view, email and post away with videos creating an seemingly endless liability for poor Mom and Dad.

The owner of the copyright, of course, merely need discover that someone has place the copywritten material on a web site for "performance" and notify the authorities.

The problem with all this is the argument occasionally with my significant other regarding the "law" (for which ignorance is not an excuse) versus the concept of "attractive nuisances" (which involve ignorance of danger - mortal as well as, I will argue here, legal).

According to Wikipedia "the attractive nuisance doctrine states that landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by a hazardous object or condition on the land that is likely to attract children who are unable to appreciate the risk posed by the object or condition."  Now this extends beyond landowners to any number of applications and situations in real life.

Traditionally this is used to punish land owners that own, say, a quarry filled with water that kids swim in.  Of course the quarry might be dozens of feet deep and require someone to dive into just the right spot in order not to hit their head.  Kids go there, get drunk, jump in and die.  Its the land owner's fault because the quarry represents an "attractive nuisance".  The land owner should have known better.  At least that's the how the lawyers like the narrative to go...

To me unlawfully posted videos are merely attractive nuisances which draw in children and the ignorant.  Certainly no one could ensure that every Facebook post, video blog, youtube, and all the rest were lawfully placed there in the first place.  These laws focus on children - basically those ignorant of potential danger - but with the mere playing of youtube videos creating federal criminal felonies are we all "children" in the sense that we cannot a priori know and have no way to be aware of the legal danger such actions might create?

I see the speed of technology rapidly outpacing the ability of government officials and elected representatives to control it - as well as making people fatally ignorant of the legal danger or jeopardy that might exist.  Yet the problem remains one for you and I - a remarkably convenient outcome for those making these laws (who no doubt receive campaign donations from companies holding for-profit copyrights).

Personally I have never understood the concept of how "drunk teenagers" can engage an attractive nuisance, or how a speeding car fleeing police can create liability for the landowner when the driver is injured in a smash up on their property.

To me if you are violating the law in the first place, say you are drinking as an underage teenager, then you have taken control of your life and taken your personal actions and made them "above the law".  In particular, your stupid actions as a drunk kid should not supersede those of say, a land owner, in the case of an attractive nuisance.  Since you are now "above the law," as in taking it into your own hands, then you should carry the responsibility for said actions.  Period.

You're drunk and that jump off the cliff into the quarry looks mighty inviting - but would you have done the same had you not been drunk?  As is often the case one drunken idiot takes the plunge, gets hurt or killed, and leaves the remaining attendant fools in shock and awe.  Yet they don't jump because they first one off the side is now dead or hurt.  They hadn't jump off previously because it looked too dangerous.  Only when one fool moves outside above law (by breaking it) does a problem result.

And where does this leave the poor landowner?  At home reading his newspaper until the police show up at his door.  Apparently he must anticipate not only what true attractive nuisances are, e.g., sink holes, uncovered mine shafts, and the like, but also what drunken teenagers might consider "attractive" as well.

(Needless to say this is also the source of big income for tort lawyers looking to sue...)

In any case I think that the chain of events for liability, criminal or civil, must stop with the first violation of the law.

If I'm drunk and I smash into your porch and get injured I should have no recourse because I was driving drunk.

Texting while driving and cause someone to rear-ends you?  Its your fault because you were breaking the law.

If I'm a drunk kid and I dive into the public pool at midnight breaking my neck I should have no recourse because I was drunk.

Similarly for copyright - the person initially posting the video on youtube should be the only one liable - and liable for all the remaining actions.  If multiple violations occur after the fact they should fall back on the person performing the original post because they created the initial problem and subsequent liability for everyone else.  Without that initial posting no one would have discovered this legal attractive nuisance.

Children (and adults) cannot reason about legal ramifications in the area of copyright law (and the internet) and hence the availability of such a video is, I think, a true attractive nuisance.  Just because the "danger" is legal and not mortal, as with a quarry, should not remove the notion of "attractive nuisance".

The doctrine of "attractive nuisance" must keep up with technology.

Venus on the Half Shell

I happened upon this article in the WSJ over the weekend: "Darkness Too Visible."

Its about the phenomena of "modern teen books" - vampires, self-mutilation, suicide, cutting - a lot of disturbing stuff.  I have to say that I've noticed this myself - not that I spend a lot of time in book stores anymore - but over the last five or so years "science fiction" has turned in to "vampire fantasy."

I've always wondered about the attraction of vampire stories.  Personally I have not watched or read any since about 1969 or so when as kids we watched "Dark Shadows" - a crappy campy daytime soap opera - I was about 11 or 12.  There were a bunch of kids in the neighborhood and during summer vacations we would gather somewhere to watch.  There wasn't much suicide, self mutilation, or any of that, just bad acting.

Since then I have had zero interest in vampires though now just about every shelf of the local book store's science fiction section is crammed with vampire nonsense.  (It's fantasy - I live in reality.  If you don't like your reality make a new one...)

I thought young adult literature was about things like S. E. Hinton's "The Outsiders" or maybe Newbery Award winners like "A Wrinkle in Time"...

How little did I know.

I do recall the Linda Blair TV show about rape in the 1970's but apparently that's all child play compared to today's "teen novels":  From Jackie Morse Kessler's Rage: "She had sliced her arms to ribbons, but the badness remained, staining her insides like cancer. She had gouged her belly until it was a mess of meat and blood, but she still couldn't breathe."

Then there is the modern "Twilight" series.  I suppose that this also fans these flames.

Today's modern teen novels cover homophobia, rape, incest, cutting, boozing, sexual abnormalities, beatings, you name it, all as regular fare.

About the most "lurid" novel I can recall of this sort was "Venus on the Half Shell" by Kilgore Trout.

In about 1972 I recall what was being read in the high school study hall - "Dune" by Frank Herbert, "The Arms of Krupp" by William Manchester, literature along those lines.  When I entered high school the guys graduating were on their way to Vietnam - by the time I graduated in1975 the local draft induction and registration centers were all closed or sent anyone who went there to register away.

From my perspective as a teenager that was a rather large pallor hanging over everyone's head - "next stop is Vietnam" and all that.  While there was protest music in the form of songs like Neil Young's "Ohio" beyond that everyone seemed to keep a cool head.  And while there were suicides, abortions, and all the rest in high school - one or two in the four years I was there - that was by far exception and not the norm - nor was it glorified in any way.

So what's the point of all this?

Well, while the Vietnam war raged all around us as teenagers - on Walter Cronkite's news programs in vivid black and white - most people I knew or saw were not horrifically affected like today's youth.  You knew guys that went to 'nam, or to Canada.  You knew guys that "came back".  You knew what you were facing.  And it wasn't pretty. But hey, you were going to be grown up so you dealt with it.

Apparently today's teenage years are far, far worse off than what I saw in the 1960's and 70's - in spite of the war.

Personally I think the self centered 60's "drug culture" mentality which took over the entire country as the baby boomers aged and begin to integrate into the rest of society has done great harm to today's youth.  Their message was "me first" - which didn't leave much room for their children's future when they came along later on.

In my high school years you thought about being 18 and reaching "adulthood".  People dropped out to get married and have kids, people had kids, people graduated despite adversity, got married, people went on to college, people went to work.  That was about it.  There were no long decades of post-high-school malaise where you went to twelve years of graduate school only to wore at McDonalds.  You might have had obstacles but your job, because you were young, was to overcome them.

Most kids I knew going into high school were already "grown up" by today's standards - some lived effectively on their own by then - high school shaped their thinking and future a bit more - exposed them to some new things or gave them skills needed for the futre - but on a personal level there was not a lot of change over those four years.  The vector of their futures was quite often already settled - at least in general.  Kids aspired to be "grown up" - to vote, to have the freedom of their own lives to do what they wanted.

You don't see that today - you're not a "grown up" until you've had your starter child, your failed starter marriage, your mound of unpaid debt, your rehab experience - all by age 30.  No wonder they read books about self mutilation.

You could even see the beginnings of it by the time I graduated - the kids coming in as freshman were less serious, less grown up, worried less about the future and more about having fun.

Sadly I don't run into many people my age who give a rat's ass about today's kids (their own kids or their grand kids) - most of these folks are too busy "finding themselves" again after their second or third failed marriage, their drug problems, etc. - their own kids cast aside in the process.  Little wonder these modern kids turn to thoughts of suicide, vampires, rape, and abuse.

So its little wonder today's kids are screwed up, read screwed up books, all the while fantasizing about suicide, death, rape, abuse, mutilation.

The WSJ should serve as a wake up call to the adults - the canary in the coal mine just died - but sadly it won't...