Save the Humans

Children Recycling Rubbish, Educational Indoctrination

I thought this was funny. This bunch of children spent hours sorting cardboard and paper and other rubbish into different bins. Then the bin man just tossed it all in together in the truck. Then the bin man claimed that the work the children had done was not a waste of time. Hmmm.

The Headteacher's comments [Yvonne Harris] were more terrifying than funny:

"I'm seething. What is the point in teaching the children about recycling when everything is thrown into the landfill right before then?"
"Recycling is a massive part of our curriculum and it forms a large part of the Government's agenda"
"We're told not to use plastic bags from supermarkets and to cut down on using cars, but then this happens. It's a joke"

Here are my questions:

• Why would a highly-educated teacher believe in the supermarket bag scam?
• How could said Headteacher allow recycling to be a massive part of the educational curriculum in her school?
• Why would she think that a government could have a 'recycling' agenda?

Shame on the Headteacher, the educational authority and the British Government for filling the minds of innocent children with this environmental garbage when they should be learning to read, write and count.

Shame on Kent County Council for not having the honesty to just admit that recycling is, quite often, a waste a time, and nearly always a waste of money. Maybe one day robots will pull apart our waste at very little cost and recycle it for us. Not yet.

eDay Naff but Better than the Rest

About 1000 tonnes of computers, etc. were dropped off at 'eDay 2009' a few weeks ago. Nicky Wagner (ChCh MP) promoted it and was planning to be at the ChCh site on the day. I mention that because Mrs Wagner appears to be an environmentalist, which is a constant worry.

Anyway, whenever I see these sorts of things I ask four questions:

1. Who pays?
2. Where does it go?
3. Why bother?
4. What brainwashing has taken place?

1. With respect to the first question, the concern is always that councils and governments foot the bill, and pass it on to taxpayers. Their employees are often environmentalists themselves and have little idea of the cost of anything they do, and spending other peoples' money on their pet project is always a good lark.

Answer: Sadly yes, this was funded by the Ministry for the Environment, established in 1986. This ministry was apparently a leader in purchasing fancy coffee machines and colour photocopiers for its offices, so perhaps they have more e-waste than others. In particular, it seems the Ministry paid for a jolly:

CANZ was invited by CRTNZ Limited to visit South Korea to meet with
government officials and visit e-waste recycling facilities in the
Seoul area and Nonsan, in Chung Nam Province south of Seoul....The visit took place over three days from 10 - 12 June 2009

The total cost is not disclosed, but should be.

2. Where does it go? We want to know where the material ends up, so we can judge the benefits and costs of the programme. In many cases (such as Christchurch's entire recycling programme) this information is murky, or changes more often than administrators admit.

Answer: A good attempt to answer this question is made on the web site. For example:

Once it arrives at the recycling plant in South Korea, all non-working
monitors are manually disassembled and the following materials
recovered for reuse:
• copper wire and polymer coating
• circuit boards and valuable metals such as copper, lead and zinc
• unleaded glass
• plastics
• steel and other metals.

Most of the weight of a computer is in the metal case and internals. The PCBs are a fairly small amount, but the page makes much of the recovery of gold and other metals from the PCBs. Perhaps this helps to pay the cost. But seems likely that recycling these items is not much less intensive (in terms of energy and cost) than manufacturing them in the first place. Also, while gold contacts are used, these are considered a 'high-cost' item in the industry, used only where needed.

The bulky components on a PCB are connectors which are a mixture of metal and plastic, carefully bound together. It's not easy to imagine a process to recover that automatically, or cheaply. Bear in mind that plastic is a oil by-product and is pretty cheap. 'Cheap' means environmentally cheap too, in case you have forgotten.

No comment is made about hard disks, which are fairly hefty items, certainly weighing more than the PCBs.

In any case, the material does appear to go somewhere useful and a genuine effort has been made to try to make sure it isn't just dumped in another part of the world.

3. Why bother?

Given that the event is staffed with volunteers, has sponsors, and keeps the proceeds from its efforts, yet still needs funding, it is clearly nowhere near being a viable commercial venture. Without knowing the cost it is hard to make an assessment of the worth of the programme. In general, disposing of e-waste in a landfill causes no problems other than hand-wringing from environmentalists (car batteries are surely much worse). Landfills are designed to cope with toxic materials (at enormous cost) so it seems that the efforts to divert these from the landfills are trying to solve the same problem twice. Still, environmentalists are good at blowing problems out of all proportion and then creating silly 'partial solutions' at enormous cost.

But there is a cost to landfill space (perhaps a several dollars a tonne) so it could be argued that the e-waste has saved several thousand dollars there.

4. What brainwashing has taken place?

Normally this is done in schools. School children are told that the world will end unless they convince Daddy to take all their old computer junk to the E-day. My children regularly tell me things like that. Oddly they can seldom recall where they found out this information - almost never have they said 'from school' and yet that is the only conceivable place in most cases. Great brainwashing leaves little trace.

As well as e-waste disposal
information, all schools will be provided with educational
posters and a downloadable schools’ kit that contains fun
activities for students to learn about sustainable e-waste
disposal and IT energy conservation. With the support of
the Microsoft NZ Partners in Learning Programme and NTICED,
an Australian educational software developer, the kit will
include a new activity utilising the animation software
MARVIN and eDay’s e-Waste Eddie character.

Looking at the brochure:

The highly-toxic chemicals leached by old electronic equipment such as lead, mercury and cadmium, pose a threat to the environment, wildlife and also human health. Exposure to mercury can cause brain damage, while lead damages our blood and nerve system as well as being highly toxic to plants and animals.

This would be the mercury which is now used in domestic light bulbs, by the way. They almost became mandatory in New Zealand, and have recently become mandatory in the EU. According to this paper, an old CRT is responsible for about 12mg of mercury over its life, including production, power generation, power consumption in North America. Bearing in mind that a single light bulb has 5mg just in the bulb...

The paragraph quoted doesn't mention the steps taken to ensure than landfill material doesn't leach back into the earth, nor mention that it came from the earth in the first place. The mention of wildlife is spurious (has a sheep died of mercury poisoning?) but is good for children as it conjures up images of cuddly animals dying horribly because of Daddy' computer.

Brainwashing, tick!

Overall it is really hard to see this as much more than a stunt. But I imagine (without any facts to back this up) that it is a fairly low cost stunt. On the four criteria above, and given the awful lack of competition in terms of useful environmental action, this stunt doesn't come out too badly.

Samsung's Corny Phone

Just when you thought we had all the environmentalism we could cope with, Samsung creates a phone out of recycled corn. Or maybe the corn is fresh. Guess what colour the phone is? Yes you are right, it is green.

The packaging is made from 70 per cent recycled materials, including a soy-based ink, and the paper user manual has been replaced by an online version. The charger claims to consume 12 times less power than the Energy Star standard and features a visible notification to alert the user to unplug the handset once it’s fully charged.

It seems that most environmentalists keep their phone on charge 24/7 and never actually take it out of the house. This will be a great feature for them. For the rest of us who charge our phone once a week overnight, it might not help much.

Sadly, getting rid of the user manual is not a new idea. And the 300W computer that the user will likely use to download the manual might negate any benefit there. Still, while there are enviro-idiots in the world, why shouldn't a company exploit them with a silly gimmick like this? I know I would.

Apple Does It Again

This looks really impressive. What I just can't understand is why it has taken so long for a company to come up with a computer that is so simple to use. I think Apple is onto a winner with this one. I checked with our local Mac store and it will be available in New Zealand in exactly 3 weeks.

Why Microsoft Might Be Toast

This is the CEO, by the way.

Microsoft : Yesterday's Company

There is no shortage of Mac fans willing to predict the demise of Microsoft.

People wondered how I could think Microsoft possibly needed saving, with its size and money and power, but the firm has indeed been faltering. The latest financial results for most tech firms are now in, confirming Microsoft's position. So it's clearer what I was getting at a couple of months ago.

Microsoft's profits haven't actually crashed. They are just lower than hoped. Revenue is still rising - until you take the rate of inflation into account, anyway. Microsoft's stock has lost nearly half its value over the past year, but tech stocks are down everywhere, including Apple's.

In the current climate some would argue that 5000 job losses (about 5%) isn't too bad. I've never actually played with a Microsoft Zune - a little unit a bit like an Apple iPod. I heard that it had some sort of wierd copy protection, but otherwise wasn't a bad device. It seems that the Zune is dead or dying. That would surely be every Mac fan's dream.

On the other hand Microsoft deserves a lesson from the market and the reason is security.

Recently I noticed a tender from one of our beloved government departments, looking for a security system for its end-user computers. The requirements are numerous, over 100, including protection against viruses, stopping users doing things they shouldn't, firewalls, authentication and omnipresence. It seems to me that said department would be much better off just changing operating system, rather than trying to build a secure PC based on Windows. Thankfully for Microsoft, the government department doesn't see it that way.

The enormous cost of Windows' insecurity is borne by consumers everywhere. Just like government regulation in the building industry increases the cost of a cup coffee (through increased building costs and therefore rent), Windows increases the cost of business. It makes email harder by providing loads of easily-infected PCs for spamming networkings. It causes hotels to lock down their networks so much that you can't even use your own company's email server when travelling. It stops people from browsing and banking with confidence. It employs legions of otherwise useless 'IT staff' to reinstall, disinfect and nursemaid the country's computers.

Microsoft isn't really to blame for this debacle. It is the crooks' fault. But Microsoft's total inability to build a secure operating system (while claiming that it has) has made things much easier for the crooks.

On the other hand it is far to early to predict that Microsoft is dying. On the contrary, it has released a dodgy Windows upgrade (called Vista), but people are still looking forward to the next release. It owns the OS and office software markets (the two biggest in consumer and small business software) even though there are free and excellent alternatives. It has a presence and following (to some extent) in cellphone software despite Nokia's massive purchase and open sourcing of SymbianOS. People still buy PCs for games, and spend $1000 or more on the latest graphics card.

On the other hand (did I mention I am an octopus) I have noticed recently:

1. I purchased an Asus EEE-Box over the holidays, for about $400. It is tiny and works well as a home computer. It is surely what computers should be with current technology, not these over-large and air-filled boxes. How Asus can justify paying $50 to Microsoft for the OS software is beyond me. The kids haven't even moved beyond the web browser built into the BIOS (splashtop) so we are not getting value for money from the license
2. Talk of clock speeds has dried up and it is sometimes difficult even to find out the clock speed of a computer. This suggests that consumers don't care so much about upgrading to the latest spec. Computers have become more of a commodity tool than a technology-driven gadget. If so, it's about time.
3. Operating Systems and office software now have all the features than most of us need, even the free editions like Ubuntu / OpenOffice. For most, there is little reason to upgrade to the latest version of anything
4. Gadgets are increasingly independent of the 'PC'. You can now sync your phone over the air to a server, rather than having to connect it to your laptop. Your camera can print directly to a printer without needing a PC. Phones and other portable devices are getting better and better at operating on the Internet. The idea of the PC as the bringer-together of all these gadgets is looking a bit unlikely
5. A slower trend, but local storage is on the way out. Much better to store your files 'forever' on someone else's Internet-connected disk
6. Games machines now have Internet, web access, music library features as well as an excellent user/revenue base from which to push features like online shopping, movie rental, etc. It is early days, but it is by no means clear that the PC will win this battle

Microsoft's interests run in the opposite direction of these trends. So perhaps it is in trouble. At the very least, Microsoft should probably try to run with the flow rather than against it, to the extent possible. Then I might even buy some shares.

Poor Internet Exploder

For those still using Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Windows, another day another virus. This one can infect your computer just by going to a website. One wonders why people bother using their products.

Is Windows and its lack of security the primary reason why in many companies you cannot 'get out' on any other port than 80, the web site port? So many computers are infected, and taken over by hackers and crooks, that it is easier for IT people to simply block everything, and hope no one complains. The cost in terms of lost productivity, hassle and sysadmin overhead is large.

In other unrelated news, Ubuntu released a new version in October.

Try a Flash Blocker to Speed up Web

If you haven't already done it, I recommend installing a flash blocker add-on for Firefox here.

With a lot of tabs open, and flash running, Firefox can really be hammered by some sites. Most flash animations are fine, and I haven't figured out why some are a problem. But anyway, having ads bounce around in front of you when you are trying to read doesn't make for a pleasant experience.

The blocker turns every flash animation on the page into a play button, a bit like Youtube. When you click play, it plays the flash animation. You can also tell it to allow flash on certain sites (such as Youtube).

Amazon Kindle - The Future of Reading?

Environmentalists sometimes complain that we use too much paper. Of course, most of us know that this doesn't matter, since paper grows on trees. But for those who still think paper is bad, there is Amazon kindle.

Take a look at the video here.

Now I don't own one of these, but I have something similar - an Iliad which uses the same screen technology. Amazon talks about it being as easy to read as paper. It really is - it is quite different from an LCD screen. The update speed is very slow - about 3/4 of a second. But it is less than the time it takes me to turn a page. Also you can change the font size easily which is great.

I do most of my blog and web reading on my little Nokia E90, just because of the convenience of being able to do this anyway. And the kindle includes a cellphone modem too - I thought it was WiFi but it is not. The problem with WiFi is that it doesn't work everywhere.

Sadly I doubt that the kindle would work fully in New Zealand. I imagine Vodafone's network would support it but I haven't heard of any deal being done there.

The problem with the Iliad is the need to sync, which is a pain. At least it doesn't need to sync to a PC like some products. But it still requires a manual operation. And at the point you pick up the device, you want to read, not sync. From the video it seems that Kindle is 'sync free' in that is automatically gets your content (newspapers, blogs) etc. all the time and you don't need to ask it to.

It will be interesting to see how this technology develops.

(BTW Sony also do one with the same technology)

Helen Clark and Photoshop

Now I'm sure Helen Clark isn't the only one who loves Photoshop, so this post is not going to be entirely fair. But it would be a brave punter who would argue that HC's photo for the past many years bears much resemblance to the real deal.

This one is taken from Labour's web site a few moments ago.

The HOS reports that the latest one is more in keeping with reality, but then contradicts itself by putting the real one in front of the fake.

So let's get down to brass tacks. Helen Clark is not an ugly woman. There certainly are photos about, which are not entirely flattering, such as this one:

But anyone can scowl. This Forbes photo shows her own teeth are probably not up to the standards imported in the photoshop images. Whale Oil did a mini expose on that a while ago.

But with a smile and a bit of light and happiness, a good photo can be had. So why the Photoshop? Why the extreme Photoshop job? Is it the teeth? It's hard to think of what else you would want to change. But come back to the original, who are they kidding? This sort of thing is not phtography, it is art.

I haven't seen a close-up of the new billboards yet, but let's hope for a more true-to-life image of our leader for the past 9 years. Assuming Ms Clark does lose the election, I believe she will be fairly fondly remembered after a period, and the above photo has done nothing for her credibility.

Firefox 3 Extensions

I have been ignoring Firefox extensions for ages, but I have finally given in and installed 14 plug-ins. Take a look at this article, which details most of the ones I installed.

Adblock Plus - removes ads

ColorfulTabs - they can't spell colour, but it's nice to have colours on your tabs

Ctrl-Tabs - I can move through my masses of tabs using Ctrl-Tab

DownloadHelper - for getting videos and images from sites

FireGestures - great when you get used to it although I find keyboard shortcuts just as good most of the time

Flashblock - gets rid of those annoying flash animations, click play to run them

Foxmarks - sync bookmarks over multiple computers

GooglePreview - get little preview window next to google search results

ScribeFire - for blogging, a bit clucky but it works

StumbleUpon - not really sure about this one

TimeTracker - records browsing time, a bit scary if you're online a lot


There's even one for making Internet Explorer a tab in Firefox....not sure why...I doubt it works on Ubuntu anyway.

Nokia N810 Portable Web Browser

I suppose these devices are a bit of a niche product. I can't see my wife getting into it. But I do more web browsing for relaxation/interest with my N770 or my Nokia E90 than I do on a computer. The interesting thing is how capable they are, and how well integrated the networking is into the unit.

If you haven't heard of Ubuntu, it's a version of Linux, sort of like Windows or Mac, but with a different colour scheme (mostly brown!). If Nokia manage to put the functionality of Ubuntu Linux into a little computer like this, it's going to be interesting.

You can see a video here.

Asus Eee PC

If you haven't already seen it, take a look. Dick Smith has them for $478. A 7" screen and weighs < 1kg. There is a 9" screen version available also.

It's a Linux-based computer with Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice and a fast CPU. It works really well, and it's small. Battery life is good. I got used to the keyboard after about 15 minutes.

The device has been a huge hit for Asus, and they have big plans:

Asustek currently has a total of 11 Eee PC models on the market differentiated in terms of size, CPU type and design. Shen added that two new categories, Ultimate and Pro Fashion, are planned for 2008. These models will feature dual-core Atom processors and larger storage (either 120GB HDD or 32GB SSD). Shen said he anticipates total Eee PC shipments will exceed 1.5-1.6 million units in the third quarter, putting the company on track to achieve its targeted annual shipments of five million units.

And this:

Although the company's Atom-based Eee PC 901 is already estimated to get near eight hours of maximum battery life, a future upgrade due in the last half of 2008 should give it "whole-day" battery life that potentially gives it an edge over challengers. It will also offer an Internet-based storage option similar to those offered by Dell and others and will help compensate for the limited built-in storage.

The future of computing is not Windows and Intel, in my view. It is Linux and ARM. But this device is a funny mixture - it came out with Linux but now supports Windows. It uses an Intel chip, and has a solid state hard disc, but a fan for the CPU!

Looking at the Eee PC you can see where things are going. It's great for kids too, so easy to use, and no clutter.

Ban the Speedometer, not the Cellphone

Well it was a while ago, but that doesn't make The Press's enthusiam for a ban on the use of cellphones in cars any more forgivable. The proposed cellphone ban is not a 'Good Start'

According to the Government, the number of reported motor-vehicle crashes involving the use of cellphones has more than doubled in the last six years. Between 2002 and 2007, the use of cellphones and the like was a factor in 411 injury crashes and 26 fatal crashes.

Cellphone use has no doubt doubled (at least) in that time. Put another way, I believe that crashes involving the use of coffee have more than doubled in the last 6 years. Coffee is clearly dangerous, or do we just drink more of it when driving?

Research also indicates that using a mobile phone while driving increases the risk of being involved in a crash by up to four times.

Just having someone else in the car will do that. Listening to National Radio is likely to induce suicidal behaviour but we don't ban that.

A ban on the use of hand-held devices will not be a cure-all.

That's a shame - my terminal cancer will have to wait a few weeks perhaps?

Their use is only part of the overall problem of driver distraction, which was identified in 2006 as a contributing factor in 11 per cent of all road vehicle crashes.

Another important factor is our crappy roads, which are not suitable for the traffic volumes on them, and urgently need upgrading in many many areas.

Indeed, official resistance to a ban on cellphones was based on the idea that enforcement should focus on the wider issue rather than cellphones alone.

Fair enough too.

Cellphone use is such a highly visible, plainly dangerous activity that targeting it directly sends a clear road-safety message to drivers. Specific messages are more effective than general ones.

Within reason, it is not plainly dangerous to speak on the phone while driving. I do it all the time. In fact, when I get in the car, often my first thought is 'who can I call?' It is an efficient use of time. Admittedly I did put a car kit in the car, but my new cellphone doesn't work with it and I haven't felt rich enough to change it yet. I do have a hands free headset which I often use, particularly for longer calls, but not always.

In any case, the headset does not remove the distraction. The distraction is caused by having to speak to someone, and is the same even when speaking to someone else in the car. The problem is not the hand holding the phone, but the speaking.

Anyway, holding a phone to your ear for a long time in a car will give you a sore elbow. That's a natural indication that it is a bad idea.

It can be expected that with a focus on a clear example of a hazardous practice, the lesson that drivers must always use care and attention will be reinforced.

Should we ban people from driving after being fired from their jobs? How about after an argument with their dog? What about after being told that they have 6 months to live? I think it should be illegal to eat Burger King burgers while driving, but MacDonalds should be ok. Get a grip, guys.

The speedo is another huge distraction. In recent years I spend perhaps 20% of my time watching the speedo as I drive. Perhaps we should get this removed. It is clearly dangerous. I expect that a good proportion of accidents involved drivers watching the speedo too closely.

Don't be Proud of Modern Computers

What does the future hold for computers?

Reading the average computer magazine over the past several years you may have become a little mesmerised by the monotony of the products on offer. 'Fastest PCs ever!' seems to be a regular headline. Articles talk about new SATA disks (a thin red cable to connect rather than the old wide grey one), more powerful graphics cards for gamers, or the latest version of Windows. Speaking as a computer user, my question is 'who cares?'. These magazines are obviously aimed at enthusiasts.

I should be an enthusiast. I have been programming computers since I was 12 (taught by my mother, oddly enough). I like to get things done quickly, so a faster computer should be better for me. But I don't care either. Once a week I rip a DVD and am pleased that my dual core AMD machine can do it in 30 minutes or so. The rest of the time, the computer is twiddling its thumbs.

Has my user experience changed greatly over the past 10 years? Sadly I have to answer that it has not. It has the same grey windows, the same mouse (but optical!), the same keyboard (with two new keys!) and it is still monumentally stupid. Only the other day I asked it to tidy up my home directory and it ignored me. I had to do it myself.

Files I create on my home computer have to be manually moved to my work computer. Changes made to a document on one computer go unnoticed by the other. When I email a document to a work colleague for editing, my computer doesn't bother to tell me what he changed. Sure the computers are networked, files are shared, but only in the most basic, manual way. No one could suggest that there is any meeting of minds, or in fact any minds at all. It is as if these mindless machines have no interest in each other. Even two dogs will arrange a sniff as they pass in the street.

When you think about it, computers are more remarkable for what they can't do than what they can. Can they change my milk order, tune my car engine or summarise my phone messages each morning? No, they can't even reliably remove the spam from my email inbox. Just getting a photo from my digital camera to print out via the computer is a major pain.

Do you hear the Mac fans loudly proclaiming that it is all Microsoft's fault? Well perhaps Bill Gates did lack understanding of the meaning of genuine innovation. But Steve Jobs (current CEO of Apple) upped and left the industry for years, hardly a better role model. Anyway, while Macs may be a bit more rational, easier to use and reliable, they are not fundamentally better at the sorts of tasks I have mentioned. Same for Linux in my book. I use Ubuntu Linux and it's great, but still at this same 'primitive' level.

Now that I have registered my complaints, what do I want? Speech and natural language recognition would be a good start. A unified view of all my files where-ever I am, including work, home, photos, other people's home videos, etc. would be nice. An electronic agent that could do my tax return or book tickets to the next game/event wouldn't go amiss. A service which could trawl the internet and write a concise and relevant page on any chosen topic would help me in my job. Speaking of which, a spare brain to solve the problems I find difficult at work would definitely find its way into my life.

Am I asking too much? Apparently so. Windows Vista is advertised as 'Bringing clarity to your world' which sounds great, and perhaps I won't need glasses after all. But the feature changes since the last effort 4 years ago don't even begin to address my concerns. What sort of clarity are they on about?

Yes, I am asking for artificial intelligence (AI). If we believe computer scientists (of which I am one) it will be another 20 years before true AI appears, and two decades longer than that before AI rivals the power of the human brain. I hope in time computers will look back on their evolution with embarrassment, much as we look back at cavemen.

So don't tell me how many gigahertz your latest computer is, or how many quadrabytes the disk holds. As far as I am concerned it is a large, noisy, stupid black box. I am going to stop looking at computer magazines in protest. To the computer industry: give me a poke when you have produced a genuinely revolutionary device which really can simplify my life.

Oil is Going to Tank

An interesting article for those of you about to buy a new car. Maybe $5 a litre isn't going to happen after all. I have quoted liberally from the article, so liberally that you might as well just follow the link!

High-flying tech stocks crashed. The roaring housing market crumbled. And oil, rest assured, will follow the same path down.

... it's clear that the only question is when - not if - prices will succumb.

The oil bulls are correct in their explanations of why prices have jumped, to a record $138.54 a barrel on Friday. It's indisputable that worldwide demand has surged, chiefly driven by strong growth in China, India and the Middle East. It's also true that most of the world's reserves are controlled by governments in places like Russia and Venezuela that mismanage production, thus curtailing supply growth.

But today, the sudden surge in demand and the production bottlenecks have thrown the market radically out of balance.

Almost exactly the same thing happened in the housing market. And both housing and oil supply react to a surge in demand with a long lag. In housing, the lag is caused by restrictive zoning and development laws, especially in coastal markets like California and Florida.

But sooner or later the world won't keep paying those prices: Eventually, the price must fall back to the cost of that last barrel to clear the market.

So what does that barrel cost today? According to Stephen Brown, an economist at the Dallas Federal Reserve, that final barrel costs just $50 to produce. And when the price is $125, the incentive to pour out more oil, like homebuilders' incentive to build more two years ago, is irresistible.

It takes a while to develop new supplies of oil, but the signs of a surge are already in place. Shale oil costing around $70 a barrel is now being produced in the Dakotas. Tar sands are attracting investment in Canada, also at around $70. New technology could soon minimize the pollution caused by producing oil from our super-plentiful supplies of coal.

And so it will be with oil. We don't know where the new abundance will come from, from shale, or tar sands or coal or an OPEC desperate to regain market share. We just know that it will appear. With prices like these, it always does.

All I can say is I can't wait. The best thing won't be the happy feeling of filling up for $50 again, but the long faces of environmentalists as their doomsday is called off yet again.

Centameter Power Monitor

I have been looking for something like this for a while, and The Press had a little piece about it recently.

It is a little device that measures power consumption of your house and displays it in cents per hour. I have ordered one, so will post a few comments in a month or so. I have always been interested in knowing how much power particular devices use. This device should allow me to do that without too much trouble.

It is billed as a device which will save you money. Of course, the more people reduce their power bills the less pressure the environmentalists in the government will be under to build a load of new coal fire power stations, but you can't have everything.

And while I am on the topic, a reminder of Not PC's post on the reason why power is so expensive: not enough generation!

I Should Give These Guys a Call

It is hard not to be excited by reports that a company has penetrated the human mind:

At a home nestled in the heart of Christchurch surburbia five men have mapped the structure of the human consciousness.

Surely the definition of suburbia was that it doesn't have a heart? Looking at their address they are more like the edge of surburbia, near Sumner in fact. Still, enough nit-picking, his has got to be good:

VortexDNA has found that human intention is structured according to the mathematics of complex systems. So far VortexDNA has found people fit into 72,000 different types of consciousness, which is held together by spiral patterns, similar to DNA.

That seems like a lot, but that's fine, so long as it is finite. What sort of amazing technology might this new discovery provide?

He said it had so many applications it would take 20 years to fully develop and realise all its uses. VortexDNA was focusing on the insurance and advertising industries.

"We hope it will reduce the cost of car insurance."

I have to admit that this level of ambition did rather put a lid on my excitement. Still at least they are focussing on making a dollar, unlike many start-ups.

VortexDNA...has received $1.25 million from angel investors, but it needs a significant boost in capital to make the most of its discovery.

Don't they all.

Kenton-Dau said the team has meandered its way through [$1.25m] taking a Kiwi No.8 wire approach since creating the company more than two years ago. To get to the next level it needed $US10m ($NZ12.7m ) to $US15m to expand and set up offices in New York, London, Moscow and Singapore.

Oh dear, maybe I was wrong about the 'making a dollar' bit.

"This is just the start. We're going to look back in 10 years and see we're just in nappies at the moment," Kenton-Dau said.

Hmmmm.

No doubt they presented their technology in an understandable way, and the quotes printed were taken out of context. They also mention that they almost have contracts with two US-based auto insurance companies, which I neglected to mention.

But is business in New Zealand really in such a state that for success stories we have to dig this deep?

I have always been interested in the human brain, and understanding it, particularly my own. If there really is something here, then it could be great news for brain science.

Anyway best of luck guys! Let's hope there is another piece in the paper when you sign those contracts, and that you do one day become New Zealand's first $1bn technology company. With most of the electronics outfits shutting up shop, we could sure use it.

Ubuntu for your Computer

A new Ubuntu has been released called Hardy Heron - if you're sick of virus protection software and want to give it a go, now's your chance.

Lifehacker has some thoughts. For me, it seems to work well.

Book Review: A Short History of Progress (Author: Ronald Wright)

Summary: At times a facinating read, but in the end utterly unpersuasive

This is a very short book with 5 chapters. Chapters 1-4 are a very interesting and wide ranging discussion of the collapse of a few civilisations over the past 3000 years. It mentions Rome, Sumer, the Maya and Easter Island.

All (except perhaps Rome) died because they ran out of food. Their populations got too high, or they irrigated and ended up with too much salt in the soil, or they expanded too much. None was able to arrest its decline before collapse, yet some (surely) could see it coming.

The obvious implication is that it could happen to us. Which is all very lovely and we look forward to finding out how.

But then you actually get to chapter 5, and the author seems to lose his train of thought. From there I see a 25 page train wreck in slow motion. Here are the problems as I see them.

1. No new technology: The chapter first seems to assume that there will be no new technology in the area of food or energy. Even if there is, it seems to look down on it, as if growing food with fertiliser is somehow not fair or safe. Isn't improving the odds what technology is about? Many modern technologies are depicted as dangerous and the idea seems to be that we advance our technology until it kills us. What? Remember the nuclear bomb, the book says, trying to equate this with GM food, nanotechnology and other bleeding edge technologies.

2. Death is good and bad: Much discussion about how recent population increases are 'unsustainable' and we can't feed that many people – apparently without all this new food technology we could only feed about 1 billion people. But then when war and pestulence is mentioned, with 100m dying from war (for example) in the 20^th Century, this is also a bad thing. We can't have it both ways. Do you want to kill off 5 billion people or don't you? If you do, stop complaining about war and disease. If you don't, stop complaining about technology.

3. Industrial Revolution was based on pillaging: Most people would credit the rise of the machines with the transformation in human welfare which started with the industrial revolution. Somehow or other in England the conditions were right, the luddites were overrun, and the risk-averse were ignored. But this book just puts it down (mostly) to all the gold looted from South America (3 tonnes apparently, at a value today of perhaps $100m). With a GDP in the UK of about $10 billion in 1700 (http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=DF-N_lXjlL8C&pg=PA247&lpg=PA247&dq=gdp+england+1700&source=web&ots=IbYEJRvjRE&sig=XkJ_qhHtYdhyigxo8rEKo_df50I&hl=en), this isn't very persuasive.

4. Progress is a Myth: At the start of the book, progress is called a myth apologetically, but by the end there is no apology. Progress is a myth people! This is simply ridiculous. Just look at our houses, diets, life expectancy and travel speed compared to 1700. Or perhaps the myth refers to the idea that progress goes on forever. Well, it does until it stops. Do we want to stop, or continue? I suggest we continue until we are made to stop or run out of options, not stop science just because we are worried we might have to soon. It feels like a soccer team that gets 3 goals and then waits to be defeated.

Apart from these points the final chapter just goes off into the weeds in so many ways:

• Mad cow disease is supposedly a 'disaster' (p123), but really is had been minor compared to the plague, or even the flu

• 'In practice, communism was no easier on the natural environment. But at least it proposed a shared of the goods' (p124). This is a ridiculous statement for two reasons. Firstly communism has produced the world's worst environmental conditions, and secondly capitalism can be argued to share the goods far more efficiently and fairly than communsm.

• p125 suggests steering towards 'caution, conservation and social justice'. No doubt with the 'caution' approach electricity would have been banned when it was invented. Under a 'conservation' policy, housing growth would also have been banned so even the smallest village would have people living on top of each other so as not to build houses over the precious soil. As to social justice, what is the difference between that and socialism, again?

• p182 talks of bulding a colony in space in case we stuff things up badly on Earth. Then he says 'And why should we deserve another chance?' Whose side is this guy on, anyway?

• p128 '...the number in abject poverty today is as great as all mankind in 1901'. This is just picking figures. The population in 1901 was about 1.6 billion and is now 6.6 billion. So another way of stating it is that we are successfully feeding at least 5 billion more people than in 1901. Another point is that poverty has dropped sharply since 1980.

• p129 talks of environmental standards in trade with the third world. Surely this is just another way to exclude them from the benefits of trade. One of the things about being third world is that you can't afford first world environmental standards.

• p186 talks of the 'consumerist pornography of advertising'. We could also call it 'helping consumers find the right product'. This is just a negative point of view

As you can tell, there is much I disagree with in this book and your mileage may vary. Having said that, I highly recommend it as a great read for at least the first 4 chapters – the amount of information in such a small number of pages is impressive, and it is very well written and an enjoyable read. The fundamental flaw seems to be an inability to convince that these sorts of problems will happen to us. Ronald Wright needs to stop worrying.

And anyway, if our civilisation does fail, what of it? What can we do about it anyway? We'll just start again, right? Italy is still there. Maybe someone will learn some lessons from our failure and do better next time.

(my edition ISBN 1 920885 79 X Text Publishing company, Melbourne, Australia)

Justice Delayed Eight Years is Justice Denied

The Commerce Commission has lost its case against Telecom's 1999 introduction of the 0867 code. At the time, Telecom customers were calling Clear's internet lines and Telecom was paying Clear a health termination charge. Clear quite liked this arrangement.

Telecom essentially changed it by pretending that the new 0867 number, although it terminated locally, was no longer a local call, and therefore it could charge customers for use of the number. Tux Love took Telecom to the disputes tribunal over this, and Telecom rolled over, twice.

There are two sides to this story: what Telecom did was surely dodgy, but then they cannot have been happy to pay Clear per-minute termination fees for interminable flat rate calls. Taken too far, this could have cost Telecom a lot of money.

It is all ancient history now of course. Which brings up another point. Why did it take eight years to resolve this case. Telecom and Clear made up quite quickly (as I recall). Surely there should an investigation into why the court is hearing this case so late. Are we short of judges? Was the court hoping it would go away? Or did one party continually push for delays to try to extract some sort of advantage?

Whatever the reason, we need to get cases heard faster. What company is going to invest in NZ telecoms with this sort of result on the record?