GarysBlog

So it has been a long time since I have posted here - my team met another milestone and after last night's debate I had to post something.

The whole thing was a complete shame and an utter waste of time.  One hour about a  lapel-pin, Bitter-gate, Wright-gate and Ayers - no wonder you don't "need a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing..."

This morning I was reviewing Andrew Sullivan's recap on the debate and I feel he was spot on:

"I think the United States is in deep trouble. In massive debt, bogged down in a $3 trillion war in Iraq with no end in sight, its moral reputation globally in tatters, its Constitution undermined from within, America desperately needs a substantive, honest debate about the future, a root-and-branch review of foreign policy, of tax policy, of environmental policy, of torture and terror policies and of entitlements. And we do not have the luxury of using elections in this climate as a way to fight over cultural conflicts originating in this instance from the boomer civil war stemming from the 1960s.."

"Last night was not Obama's finest hour. But when you look back and see what he has already accomplished by the manner and content and care of his campaign, he is obviously on the right side. Key elements of the MSM establishment, the political establishment and the ideological right and cynical left know how big a threat he is to them. That's why Hannity can join forces with Stephanopoulos and Clinton can channel Rove. Because in this issue, they are all on the same side.

If you want to keep playing that game while this country nose-dives, go ahead. Vote Clinton. If you understand how important this is, the candidacy of Barack Obama has never been so worth supporting. We need to turn this debacle into a renewed determination to get rid of the forces strangling this country's capacity to right itself.

Not one question about health care
Not one question about the subprime crisis
Not one question about Iran
Not one question about poverty
Not one question about global warming or any environment issues
Not one question about what’s going on in Annapolis
Not one question about the mess in Pakistan
Not one question about the reconstruction of New Orleans
Not one question about the fall of the dollar

So it has been a long time since I have posted here - but my team released another update to our product so I had a minute to raise my head above the trench line.

I have been following our "featless leader" drumbeat and came across two very interesting items.  The first was an article by Rosa Brooks in this morning's LA Times entitled: "Straitjacket Bush:  The president's warmongering remarks on the Iranian threat suggest he is psychotic.  Really."

In the article Ms Brooks makes the following observation:

"Exhibit A: We're in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration's interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to tamp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people? They look around and decide it's a great time to start another war."

"On Tuesday, Bush insisted on the need 'to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat.' Huh? Iran is now a major threat to Europe? The Iranians are going to launch a nuclear missile (that they don't yet possess) against Europe (for reasons unknown because, as far as we know, they're not mad at anyone in Europe)? This is lunacy in action."

"...the American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. . . . Iran has an economy the size of Finland's. . . . It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are . . . allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?"

The UK government, in an upcoming report, is set to put forward a plan such that every household in the UK will be able to request a free device that shows how much electricity is being used in the home at any point in time.  The hope is that these "real-time monitors" will help cut greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of energy wasted by appliances being left on standby.  It is estimated that households in the UK are responsible for about one third of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, and as such have been a focus in an attempt to reduce energy consumption.

The UK government recently committed itself to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60% from 1990 levels by 2050 and this program is seen as one of the steps to fulfilling that goal.

"People can see immediately what impact their behavior has, not just in terms of money but in terms of carbon as well."

The key  is that the devices must provide meaningful information or like anything they'll become a fad/toy and consumers will merely throw them into a drawer and forget about them.  At the end of the day if it helps the consumer save money and cut emissions then it will be a big win all the way around.

BBC link here where you can click on the image on the page and see a much larger view of the interface.

The nightmare of George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality - Big Brother is now in the shadow of the author's former London home.  It took a bit longer than he predicted but his vision of a society where cameras and computers can spy on every person's movements is now here.

According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.

On the wall outside his former residence - flat number 27B - where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.

Orwell's view of the tree-filled gardens outside the flat is under 24-hour surveillance from two cameras perched on traffic lights.

The flat's rear windows are constantly viewed from two more security cameras outside a conference centre in Canonbury Place.

In a lane, just off the square, close to Orwell's favourite pub, the Compton Arms, a camera at the rear of a car dealership records every person entering or leaving the pub.

Within a 200-yard radius of the flat, there are another 28 CCTV cameras, together with hundreds of private, remote-controlled security cameras used to scrutinise visitors to homes, shops and offices.

First it was Newsweek and now it's Time Magazine.  In the April 2 issue of Time, there are different cover stories for the US market and for the rest of the world.  The global editions report on the situation in Pakistan just next too Afghanistan entitled "The Truth About Talibanistan"

"...young religious extremists have overrun scores of towns and villages in the border areas, with the intention of imposing their strict interpretation of Islam on a population unable to fight back."

Should the Holy Book be taught in public schools? Yes. It's the bedrock of Western culture. And when taught right, it's even constitutional.

Terrific! The Bible in schools - ironic the juxtaposition don't you think? 

Hmmm... could it be that marketing is getting in the way of the serious news in the U.S.? Or is the media afraid to tell Americans what they don't want to hear? Only Time can tell.

The so-called "Western Business Roundtable" (an energy lobby run by a former employee of Vice President Cheney who did PR for him on the energy bill) has sent out an email warning of the “major new threat to all businesses/industries” if the polar bear is added to the endangered species list:

Environmental extremists and activist lawyers are pushing the federal government to add the Polar Bear to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) list. Such a listing would have major negative implications for virtually every business and industry operation in the United States. The ESA is a very powerful law and could subject virtually any human activity in ALL 50 STATES to review and regulation by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bureaucrats if the Polar Bear is listed as threatened or endangered. This will essentially declare “open season” for environmental lawyers to sue to block virtually any project that involves carbon dioxide emissions.

Wonder how many polar bears there are in say Florida?!

To support listing the polar bear and getting more information click here.

Excellent article in this month's New Yorker magazine by George Packer entitled "Betrayed:  The Iraqis who trusted America the most"
The irony is that these people are the very ones which you hear all of the supporters of the war will focus on and they are the ones who at the end of the day have the highest risk, the most fatalities and the least supported and forgotten.

Millions of Iraqis, spanning the country’s religious and ethnic spectrum, welcomed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But the mostly young men and women who embraced America’s project so enthusiastically that they were prepared to risk their lives for it may constitute Iraq’s smallest minority. I came across them in every city: the young man in Mosul who loved Metallica and signed up to be a translator at a U.S. Army base; the DVD salesman in Najaf whose plans to study medicine were crushed by Baath Party favoritism, and who offered his services to the first American Humvee that entered his city.

The arc from hope to betrayal that traverses the Iraq war is nowhere more vivid than in the lives of these Iraqis. America’s failure to understand, trust, and protect its closest friends in Iraq is a small drama that contains the larger history of defeat.

The photo above taken by James Nachtwey is of an Iraqi interpreter who must wear a mask to conceal his identity while he assists a soldier delivering an invitation to an Imam for a meeting with an American colonel.

It's nearly impossible to get a sense of what the situation in Iraq is really like from press reports which tend to be brief snippets of the daily carnage.  I have always maintained that without being there it is really hard to grasp what life is like for the average Iraqi.  Sure in my own mind image I can imagine and with 2M refugees its not a big leap but NBC's Richard Engle, who in my opinion along with CNN's Michael Ware provides the best war coverage on television, has put together a video diary of his time in country which gives us a sobering (and horrific) perspective of what is really happening.

The entire thing is truly worth watching and I'm sure MSNBC will be rerunning it frequently. Check your local listings here. 

I'm only bummed its not on NBC...

On Friday I read an article about Kiva.org which is a non-profit microcredit site that is linking lenders with entrepreneurs on a global scale.

It is pretty simple as to how it all works.  Lenders visit the site to find entrepreneurs from developing countries looking for a small loan.   Kiva posts the funding needs and pictures online with the help of 38 local microfinance institutions around the world that are linked into Kiva's network. The result is that to date, nearly 40,000 people have used Kiva to lend money to 5,000 borrowers on transactions totaling $3.3M!.  And what is amazing is that no one has defaulted on their loan but apparently 10% or so are falling behind on their repayment schedules and Kiva does clearly state you're loaning at your own risk.

It reminded me so much of what we tried to do at Langoo which was to develop a simple system that could harness the power of online communities and at the same time have a direct impact on effecting people's daily lives on a global scale.  I found myself wishfully thinking that if a system like this existed we could have easily integrated this into our model and Langoo would still be going today.

So today I registered and provided my first funding to Asia Karova from the town of Smolian (also spelled Smolyan) in Bulgaria.  Asia, 38 year is a single parent who takes care of a girl and her elderly mother.  Since 2002 Asia worked as a teacher in Smolian but when she lost her job she started her own retail clothing business. She opened a stall in the town market and started to sell clothes and shoes and a year ago Asia was able to secure a contract for a permanent place in the marketplace. Asia is looking for a loan amount of $1200 to help expand and better equip her new shop.

With my contribution Asia had raised $975 towards her goal with $225 left to go.  Once the loan is funded then it closes and as lenders we can watch and track Asia's progress which Asia has a year to payback.  For more information about Asia and to track her progress click here.

Kiva has linked their payment system directly to Paypal (it is the only way to fund) who are providing the payment process service to Kiva for free (the only such commitment Paypal has ever made).  It does help that the president of Kiva, Permal Shah was a former Paypal product manager from 1999 to late 2005 but nevertheless 100% of the funded amount in my case will reach Asia.

Great idea...the concept of the web as a microfinance engine for me is fascinating to see how this can work and grow.

Great blog post by Dave Garfield about his visit to the set of Battlestar Galactica in Vancouver.  He had held off from posting anything because the episode that was being filmed centered around Baltaur's trial and was "hush-hush, top secret, spoiler-heavy stuff."

The pictures and his descriptions are excellent and when you read it you'll be amazed at the level of detail the show goes through to keep everything "in character".

No spoilers (but there is an interesting picture with the current survivor number which can make for interesting contemplation...:)

Link

Interesting interview on RegDeveloper with Russell Williams, a co-architect on the Adobe Photoshop team  about how they changed their development process from a traditional waterfall method to an incremental development model.

From:

"Before, we would specify features up front, work on features until a "feature complete" date, and then (supposedly) revise the features based on alpha and beta testing and fix bugs. But we were scrambling so hard to get all the committed features in by the feature complete date - working nights and weekends up to the deadline - that the program was always very buggy at that point. We'd be desperately finding and fixing bugs, with little time to revise features based on tester feedback. At the end of every cycle, we faced a huge "bugalanch" that required us to work many nights and weekends again."

"Probably the most effective thing we did was institute per-engineer bug limits: if any engineer's bug count passes 20, they have to stop working on features and fix bugs instead. The basic idea is that we keep the bug count low as we go so that we can send out usable versions to alpha testers earlier in the cycle and we don't have the bugalanch at the end."

"Features are developed in separate, private copies of the source, and only merged into the main product when QE has signed off on the quality level. Since each of those "sandboxes" has only one major feature under development at a time that differs from the main copy of the source, it's practical to send copies of the sandbox version out to testers to test that specific feature"

The quality of the program was higher throughout the development cycle, and there have been fewer total bugs.   Better quality, plenty of features, fewer nights and weekends"

I'm an avid reader of the Globalist which is a online service that daily covers issues and trends related to the global economy, politics and culture.  The most recent issue had an intriguing article written by Brent Ranalli which compared the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq with the Athenian campaign against Sicily during the Peloponnesian War in 415 B.C.

Ranalli essentially came up with 10 ways in which the Iraq war resembles this ancient conflict:

1) Motives as a parallel
2) Unilateralism.
3) Inadequate preparation
4) Guerilla warfare
5) Inability to secure borders and supply chains.
6) The hearts and minds
7) Taking advantage of a weak enemy
8) Creating foes out of friends
9) Waiting too long
10) Loss of faith.

The last had an interesting outcome as Ranalli points out:

Now, exhausted and demoralized after a crushing defeat in an unnecessary war, with the Spartans camped outside their walls, the Athenians lost faith in their own democratic institutions. They threw over their constitution as an expedient and embraced a police state.

The authoritarian regime was short-lived, but the moral damage was done. Athens never attained greatness again — except in philosophy and tourism. Even its eventual capitulation to Sparta, seven years after the coup, seems almost anticlimactic by comparison.

Unlike them, the United States is not in danger of catastrophic military defeat, or even of democratic self-liquidation. But it is nevertheless in danger of losing its soul.

The creeping authoritarian measures of the so-called War on Terror, the moral culpability for a “preemptive” war based on false pretenses — and the crushing costs of the war in human trauma and in debt that will be borne for generations: These could easily cause a nation to turn sour of itself and its ideals.

Part One and Part Two

I came across two very interesting articles where one looked at income distribution and the other at poverty.



The first looked at income distribution around the world based on World Bank figures and while it found that the most inequality existed in Latin America, in countries such as Brazil, Chile and Mexico, the US was the largest of any other major economies.  In the United States the wealthiest 10 percent receive almost 30 percent of national income.

The second article reported on a McClatchy Newspapers study that found the percentage of poor Amercians who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, where millions of working Americans are following closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the "haves" and the "have-nots" continues to widen.    Using 2005 census data, the research found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty (family of 4 with two children with an annual income of $10,222 or individuals who make less than $5,244 a year).  The analysis further found that the number of severely poor grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005 which was 56% faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period.

McClatchy goes on in the report to stress that while worker productivity has increased dramatically since 2001, wages and job growth have lagged behind.  All while at the same time the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries.  That helps to explain why the median household income for working families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

Turns out that the Danes are the happiest people on Earth according to Adrian G. White, a social psychologist at the University of Leicester. White has made a map of the world in terms of happiness, or, as he calls it, "subjective well being" (SWB). The darker a country, the happier its inhabitants.

The top ten in White's list are:

1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada

As for the United States, it's number 23.  Spain was 46, Slovenia 67, Greece 84, Croatia 98 and Turkey was 133.  The unhappiest place on the planet, according to White, is the African nation of Burundi.  Iraq was not even considered.

Read more about A global projection of subjective well-being and the Happy Planet Index. The Happy Planet site has a cool survey that you can take to determine your own HPI.

Venture Vehicles today announced the development of a revolutionary, 3-wheel, tilting, plug-in Hybrid vehicle under the working name VentureOne. It’s a two-passenger Hybrid vehicle that will get 100 mpg, accelerate from 0-60 in 6 seconds, will have a top speed of over 100 mph, all while being priced at under $20,000. Here are the expected models:


A key feature of the VentureOne is the patented Dynamic Vehicle Control tilting technology that allows the body of the vehicle to actually tilt when going through turns while all three wheels maintain firm contact with the road as seen in the picture above.  And if your're curious the view as seen from the cockpit:


When I first saw it I immediately thought of the cars in the Disney movie Tron


Venture One:


According to the company's website we can expect to see the VentureOne in July 2008 throughout California.

Sections of an ancient Greek theater were discovered on Thursday during construction work in an Athens suburb. Until now, only two such buildings were known in the ancient city where western theater originated more than 2,500 years ago. Fifteen rows of concentric stone seats have been located so far in the northwestern suburb of Menidi, according to Vivi Vassilopoulou, Greece's general director of antiquities.

The structure has not yet been dated, and further details are expected to emerge following a full excavation. Menidi is thought to be built over the ancient village of Acharnae, the largest of a string of rural settlements outside ancient Athens. Ancient writers mention a theater at Acharnae, but no traces of it had been found until now.

In China, the act of spitting is tolerated and done by almost everyone you meet outside.  People who have visited China report having to constantly watch where they step in an attempt to avoid any sign of spit.  One person who worked in Beijing for 8 years said about the practice that "I also looked away and tried very hard not to cringe everytime I see and hear someone spit."

In an effort to deal with the problem, the Shanghai Patriotic Sanitation Committee (don't you just love the name?) has come up with a proposal to stop, at a minimum, cab drivers and passengers from spitting out the window onto the street.

Before the Committee came up with this "spitting sack" idea, the city's hygiene authorities had attached spittoons to garbage cans on sidewalks where pedestrians mistook them for ashtrays.

The SPSC has made a vow that:

all the 45,000 taxies in the city will carry "spitting sacks" within a year. The sacks will be distributed among taxi drivers free of charge at regular intervals, and will be attached to the riot plate that separates a driver from the
passengers so that both can, if need be, spit into it.

“I don’t oppose all wars. “What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

“Even a successful war against Iraq, will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.”

"I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda."

That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

- Excerpts from Senator Barack Obama's speech on October 2002 at the Federal Plaza in Chicago.

A nice article in National Geographic about a couple who hiked the Via Alpina along the Julian Alps in Slovenia.  You can see some of their  beautiful photos and read their debate about which Slovenian beer is better. 

When my wife and I went to Slovenia we tried both beers; while one had a cool name and story behind it (Laško Pivo) and has been around since 1825 we picked Union hands down.  This couple could not decide which it turns out is a common and fun topic of debate when traveling to Slovenia and enjoying the beer.

We had no issue...Union won hands down.