Sex, Drugs & Unix

Tuesday, February 28th

Dr. Brilliant, meet TED

Dr. Larry Brilliant is not only in-control of one of the largest investment funds known to man, but now he's the recipient of a 2006 TED Prize

The presentation is actually interesting. Its a short-course on how the UN fought a massively parallel land war in order to search out and eradicate smallpox. 150,000 people were employed in the effort. The same techniques are being used today by 4 million people in an attempt to eradicate polio.

Dr. Brilliant observes that in the event of a epidemic, mankind's only hope is to use these same techniques of early detection and early response, and his TED wish is INSTEAD, a system built on GPHIN that can assist in the early detection and early response of pandemic events.

Larry should stick to medicine.

"No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master." -- Hunter S. Thompson

Jim on 02.28.06 @ 04:27 AM PST [link]

Thursday, February 23rd

Dr. Brilliant, strike three?

"Dr. Brilliant"'s appointment as the director of a $1B fund strikes me as the single largest groaner so far this year.

He's failed twice already.

Prior to CoMeta (which was a huge flop), "Dr. Brilliant" (say it like you're Austin Powers) previously flopped quite badly with a "WiFi service provider" named "SoftNet Systems". Actually "SoftNet" was three companies:

AerZone: WiFi in Airports and hotels (and thus a competitor at the time of Wayport (still alive), STSN (still alive) and Mobilestar (dead, purchased out of bankruptcy by T-Mobile).

Intelligent Communications: VSAT satellite-based internet services and VSAT terminal equipment sales.

ISP Channel: a provider of Cable MSO (cable modem) operations to small-town CATV operators.

SoftNet pulled the plug on Aerzone December 19, 2000, three days after winning the contrct for SFO, and less than three months after publicly launching, despite having the SFO deal in-hand. AerZone was founded in January 24, 2000, but wasn't launched until October of that year. Take off to crash in less than 12 months.

SoftNet was publicly traded at the time, but they're long since delisted. SoftNet ran through at least the $129 million invested by various parties, (including PCCW and CMGI, two of the most notorious dot.com of VC firms), plus the money raised in their IPO.

Wayport (where I was the founding CTO and VP of Engineering) ended up buying and operating some of AerZone's "Laptop Lane" locations in various airports.

I don't remember when Intelligent Communications and ISP channel died, but they did, both, die.

"Dr. Brilliant" (its more fun if you say it right) reappeared in December 2002 with Cometa, a company that bragged about building 20,000 access points in two years. The initial press release made clear what later news stories did not: Intel Capital, AT&T Broadband, and IBM Global Services were involved. Intel put in money alongside 3i and Apex; AT&T and IBM were committed to providing services. Cometa was never a bohemoth of AT&T + IBM + Intel, despite all coverage and spin to the contrary.

By March 2001, Brilliant was out—he’s an "international health expert" and said he thought he might be called into duty over bio-warfare at any time (this was pre 9/11!). Gary Weis of AT&T was appointed CEO, but not much happened after that. By May 2004, Cometa shut down, never having built a network with significant locations or scale.

The whole thing strikes me as "Larry continues to fight the war he's lost" (twice), only now he's got "cash in fuck you quantities" I suspect (but don't know) that Google's recent investment in FON had something to do with Larry Brilliant as well.

As nearly any real VC will attest, giving a young company $22M in a first round is, essentially, stupid as hell.

Jim on 02.23.06 @ 04:22 PM PST [link]

Wednesday, February 22nd

Understanding why Google invested in FON

This is just wrong, on so many levels, but does help explain the idiotic investment in FON made by Google and others.

GOOGLE NAMES HEAD OF PHILANTHROPY

Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Kevin Delaney

Google has named Larry Brilliant, a former high-tech executive and doctor specialized in global health issues, to head its Google.org philanthropic arm. The Web search company has pledged 1% of its annual profit and 1% of its stock, currently valued at around $1 billion, to Google.org. Dr. Brilliant's current activities include serving as a director of the Seva Foundation in Berkeley, Calif., which he founded in 1979 to combat blindness in the developing world.

Here's a link to the WSJ story.

For those of you who don't recognize the name, "Dr. Brilliant" (say it like you're in a bad sci-fi movie) was previously the CEO of Cometa Networks. One of the most dramatic dot-com flameouts.

Prior to that, he was the CEO of SoftNet Systems, another dot-com flameout. SoftNet was once considered a competitor to Wayport and STSN. Unlike Wayport and STSN, (both of which are still operating), both Cometa and SoftNet Systems died early deaths, having run through the entirety of their substantial respective investments. Having not once, but twice proven his prowess at managing large sums of money, Dr. Brilliant is now in-charge of nearly one billion dollars.

Here is the Google release.

Jim on 02.22.06 @ 10:14 AM PST [link]

Tuesday, February 14th

Happy VD!

Roses Are #FF0000
Violets Are #0000FF
All My Base
Are Belong to You
Jim on 02.14.06 @ 09:35 PM PST [link]

HTML O' the Day

"Whittington? Mistaken for a bird."

But if the predictions are corroborated, as I am certain they will be, then my detractors (I have many) should be prepared to eat a mountain of crow.

Frankenstein meets DaVinci

Two points the hard way.

IPod on the Tracks

Updates as they're available.

The social revolution is likely to focus on the most basic goal of all: keeping other people's cooties at arm's length.

Everybody needs a hobby. [Possibly offensive: AL]

Ooops.
Jim on 02.14.06 @ 04:37 PM PST [link]

The continuing crisis

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2005_warmest.html
Nice colored map of the relatively-searing Arctic transformation here. I've heard tell that last year was the hottest year in over a hundred years. And in 1200 years. And in a million years.

http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html
Of course, young George Deutsch is just one of many. Check out these scarifying fanatics "destroying scientific materialism" through their web activism. Bolsheviks couldn't be any more cocksure. They're the self-proclaimed "Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture."

That lethally mendacious astroturf title of theirs reminds me: I sure haven't heard much out of the "Greening Earth Society" lately.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Greening_Earth_Society

Not getting a blink off the Greening Earth website today. Maybe they've gone the way of the Global Climate Coalition, only with even less fanfare.
http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/251-300/00299_viridian_enemies_die.html
(Please let me know if you detect any public sign of Chris Paynter or Ned Leonard, former Greening Earth spinmeisters. Wherever they are, evil is occurring.)

Meanwhile, having perhaps wrecked civilization, Exxon-Mobil at least made more money while doing it than any corporation in the history of capitalism. Grant Exxon this much; it was their money and power at stake, not sheer love of dumb Lysenkoist spite. I mean: if they killed us, at least they killed us for cash.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002772953_exxon31.html
"Exxon Mobil reported Monday it earned more money in 2005 than any company, any year, ever. (...) On the strength of energy prices that hit all-time highs last year, Exxon Mobil earned $36.1 billion, equal to the
gross domestic product of Croatia."

Who paid for Exxon's grand success? New Orleans, for one. Did you notice when the tornadoes hit New Orleans five months AFTER Katrina?

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/National/New_Orleans_Wind_Damage.html
"Don't ever ask the question, `What else could happen?'" said Marcia Paul Leone, a mortgage banker who was surveying the new damage to her Katrina-flooded home."

Look, Marcia: you need to ask that question. Other people have their cities at risk, too. And you're a mortgage banker!

Fifty years from now: the "Lost City of New Orleans," one among many.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4673586.stm

Check this out: from now on, if an "act of nature," like a flood, wildfire, storm or levee breech, destroys your fossil-fueled rental car from Hertz, you have to pay the damage. Kind of says it all, doesn't it? The climate damage was distributed among everybody with a car-key, and now, so is the liability. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/13/BUGLQGM91F1.DTL

The Blizzard of '06, New York's biggest snowfall ever.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/13/news/storm.php

New York City happens to be remarkably vulnerable to hurricanes, mind you. Imagine a Ninth Ward Manhattan.
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050601_hurricane_1938.html

If the Homeland Security Department were underwater instead of the New Orleans, American emergency responses might actually improve. "Homeland Security" was invented during the Bush Administration, and it's Brownies top to bottom, folks.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1159098,00.html
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35057/story.htm

"Blinding lack of situational awareness and disjointed decision making needlessly compounded and prolonged Katrina's horror."

American climate-change politics: Blinding lack of situational awareness. Ideological Lysenkoism. Frenetic, obscurantist media campaigns. And ever-worsening unnatural disasters, with bills that can't be met.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/13/katrina.congress/index.html
"In many respects, our report is a litany of mistakes, misjudgments, lapses and absurdities all cascading together, blinding us to what was coming and hobbling any collective effort to respond." Journalism is the first draft of history: that's the American Greenhouse post-mortem, freshly written in the blood of New Orleans.

May I point out that the Canadians just elected a government that doesn't believe in climate change, either? Even though the good people of Canada are sitting right next to the thawing North Pole, and watching foreign ships zoom by their shores in areas that used to be ice?
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/feb/policy/jp_canadakyoto.html

And you, too, Australia, still impressively on fire and nevertheless shooting your scientific messengers.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/editorial/australia-cannot-afford-to-silence-the-voice-of-science/2006/02/13/1139679531907.html
Which city is the "New Orleans of Australia," one idly wonders. Not that an Australian city will wash away, but it might well catch fire. "The New Orleans of Canada?" Gotta be ice-storms.
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/science/guide/

The awesome scale of the Greenhouse, by the numbers.

Certain evangelicals are realizing that climate change might hurt them, too.

Other evangelicals have it figured that angry skies looming over a baffled and terrified mankind are a major recruitment opportunity. Chapter and verse! It couldn't be any clearer!

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?page=article&id=2027http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?page=article&id=2027

"The God of the Bible proclaims to control the weather. In other scriptures He says He dries up rivers, controls the seas and works in the whirlwinds. He also says that He will curse a nation that refuses to obey His laws by turning the heaven into iron and the earth into brass. Men will spend their strength in vain trying to gain an increase.
(See Leviticus 26 and Isaiah 29:6.)

"America, Britain, Australia and Canada are experiencing these curses because God wants them
to repent of their disobedience. Salubrious weather is a natural blessing that comes with obedience to God's laws. As long as His laws are trampled upon, God will continue to correct us so we will change our evil ways."

See that? We're seeing the emergence of Greenhouse Fundamentalism. It'll be very interesting to see the inevitable Fundie-Islamic spin on this same issue.Maybe if it were made clearer to them, with some cartoons.

Speaking of religion, nationalism, climate, and terror, imagine you are the nation of Georgia. Imagine that Muslim Chechnyan terrorists, or possibly a former superpower, or both, go out and blow up your natural-gas pipelines in the dead of winter. Well, that's a complete political and economic calamity. You've still got the Army, though, right? Kind of Khaki Green possibility there! However, it turns out the Army's no good, either.

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/2/364CA127-7C2F-4249-81FF-943099CF1B90.html

No wonder non-state actors can yank you around by the pipelines, Georgia. Look at yourself. Thanks
to fossil fuels, you're a state-collapse waiting to happen.

Russia, whose economy is fantastically corrupt, used to tremble at the hands of skeptical currency speculators. Now who cares about mere transparency? Russia sells gas and oil! So to hell with you, Soros, euro, dollar, yen, rupee, renminbi: we're Russia, and we can still sell gas and oil! In fact, if we took a leaf out of the Chavez book and turned into oil-selling COMMUNISTS, you'd STILL have to buy our oil. You know what? In 2006, oil's bigger than capitalism and democracy put together!

And Sweden... hey wow. Look at Sweden! "Cancel That Apocalypse: The Oil Crisis is Over."

Hice to see the occasional apocalypse cancelled!

Just listen to the lucid, golden rhetoric of these Swedish bureaucrats.

"Climate change is the greatest and most important environmental challenge of our time. Most of the world's climate researchers agree that the Earth's climate system is changing == and in order to slow down these changes, emissions of greenhouse gases must be reduced. The Government is therefore setting a new policy target: the creation of the conditions necessary to break Sweden's dependence on fossil fuels by 2020." I couldn't have recommended a better policy myself.

Who would have thought, back in 1998, when gas was $0.85/gallon in Texas, that by 2006 our arcane issues would be major news, around the planet, every dang day? Well, I did think that. But that's not what I wanted to see. What I wanted to see was intelligent awareness of the genuine scope of the problem, and effective response. And maybe, here and there, in growing bits and pieces, I'm seeing some.

Jim on 02.14.06 @ 04:33 PM PST [link]

Monday, February 13th

GM to Keep Hummer

http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article%3FAID%3D/20060210/SUB/60210152/1120%26refsect%3D&cid=1104205035

You put your bet on number one and it comes up every time.
The other kids have all backed down and they put you first in line.
And so you finally ask yourself just how big you are --
and take your place in a wiser world of bigger motor cars.

Jim on 02.13.06 @ 04:56 AM PST [link]

Sunday, February 12th

HTML O' the day

The Greensboro, N.C., gumshoe has already scheduled five infidelity investigations for Tuesday.

They are presented as visual objects to be appreciatedindividually or collectively.

You'll want one.

Yeah, well, they probably don't like "Desperate Housewives". (see also)

Kinda creepy, actually.

Steve Martin defends his SNL title.

Yummy

Probably a result of seeing the movie "Cocktail".

Retina Quilts

He looks like some degenerate tourist who has been caught humping a waxwork in Madame Tussaud's.
Jim on 02.12.06 @ 02:11 AM PST [link]

Gigabit radio networks.

Some people don't like my idea for fenceline networks because the logistics are too hard.

OK,

Here is a paper about a chipset for a 1.250Gbps RF link in the 60GHz (unlicensed) band. It can maintain that rate at a range of 250m, and the band plan used allows a full duplex link.

There are similar commercial products too.

That could be the basis for an interesting mesh PHY.

Jim on 02.12.06 @ 12:44 AM PST [link]

Friday, February 10th

All fiber diet

Doc envys Utah.

I say, "build it yourself". This is, after all, how Utopia started.

I've been debating Eric Raymond in public about "his idea" for wireless mesh networks built out of commodity WiFi. He's wrong, and sadly he doesn't seem to understand why, though I've tried to explain.

The Russ Nelson bit was too funny. What a cluebag we have in sad lad Russ.

I started taking a Hawaiian class today, in support of making kuokoa happen. The class meets at the sewage plant closest to my home.

No, I'm not kidding.

Jim on 02.10.06 @ 04:45 AM PST [link]

Wednesday, February 8th

Polls Show Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush

By Paul Craig Roberts
Two recent polls, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll and a New York Times/CBS News poll, indicate why Bush is getting away with impeachable offenses. Half of the US population is incapable of acquiring, processing and understanding information.

Much of the problem is the media itself, which serves as a disinformation agency for the Bush administration. Fox "News" and right-wing talk radio are the worst, but with propagandistic outlets setting the standard for truth and patriotism, all of the media is affected to some degree.

Despite the media's failure, about half the population has managed to discern that the US invasion of Iraq has not made them safer and that the Bush administration's assault on civil liberties is not a necessary component of the war on terror. The problem, thus, lies with the absence of due diligence on the part of the other half of the population.

Consider the New York Times/CBS poll. Sixty-four percent of the respondents have concerns about losing civil liberties as a result of anti-terrorism measures put in place by President Bush. Yet, 53 percent approve of spying without obtaining court warrants "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism."

Why does any American think that spying without a warrant has any more effect in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Bush is disobeying, requires the executive to obtain from a secret panel of federal judges a warrant for spying on Americans.

The purpose of the law is to prevent a president from spying for partisan political reasons. The law permits the president to spy first (for 72 hours) and then come to the court for permission. As the court meets in secret, spying without a warrant is no more effective in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant.

Instead of explaining this basic truth, the media has played along with the Bush administration and formulated the question as a trade-off between civil liberties and protection from terrorists. This formulation is false and nonsensical. Why does the media enable the Bush administration to escape accountability for illegal behavior by putting false and misleading choices before the people?

The LA Times/Bloomberg poll has equally striking anomalies. Only 43 percent said they approved of Bush's performance as president. But a majority believe Bush's policies have made the US more secure.

It is extraordinary that anyone would think Americans are safer as a result of Bush invading two Muslim countries and constantly threatening two more with military attack. The invasions and threats have caused a dramatic swing in Muslim sentiment away from the US.

Prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq, a large majority of Muslims had a favorable opinion of America. Now only about 5 percent do.

A number of US commanders in Iraq and many Middle East experts have told the American public that the three year-old war in Iraq is serving both to recruit and to train terrorists for al Qaeda , which has grown many times its former size. Moreover, the US military has concluded that al Qaeda has succeeded in having its members elected to the new Iraqi government.

We have seen similar developments both in Egypt and in Pakistan. In the recent Egyptian elections, the radical Muslim Brotherhood, despite being suppressed by the Egyptian government, won a large number of seats. In Pakistan elements friendly or neutral toward al Qaeda control about half of the government. In Iraq, Bush's invasion has replaced secular Sunnis with Islamist Shia allied with Iran.

And now with the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian election, we see the total failure of Bush's Middle Eastern policy. Bush has succeeded in displacing secular moderates from Middle Eastern governments and replacing them with Islamic extremists . It boggles the mind that this disastrous result makes Americans feel safer!

What does it say for democracy that half of the American population is unable to draw a rational conclusion from unambiguous facts?

Americans share this disability with the Bush administration.

According to news reports, the Bush administration is stunned by the election victory of the radical Islamist Hamas Party, which swept the US-financed Fatah Party from office. Why is the Bush administration astonished?

The Bush administration is astonished because it stupidly believes that hundreds of millions of Muslims should be grateful that the US has interfered in their internal affairs for 60 years, setting up colonies and puppet rulers to suppress their aspirations and to achieve, instead, purposes of the US government.

Americans need desperately to understand that 95 percent of all Muslim terrorists in the world were created in the past three years by Bush's invasion of Iraq.

Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush attacks Iran and Syria, as he intends, terrorism will explode, and American civil liberties will disappear into a thirty year war that will bankrupt the United States.

The total lack of rationality and competence in the White House and the inability of half of the US population to acquire and understand information are far larger threats to Americans than terrorism.

America has become a rogue nation, flying blind, guided only by ignorance and hubris. A terrible catastrophe awaits.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is co-author of The Tyranny of GoodIntentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com">paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com

Jim on 02.08.06 @ 02:24 AM PST [link]

ESR, Russ Nelson and 802.11 based Mesh Networks

What ESR doesn't understand about RF *and* the 802.11 MAC speaks volumes. I'm sure Eric means well, and he and I agree (shock shock!) on the solution being more (open) competition with the ILECs.

Quoting:

Wireless mesh networking — flocks of cheap WiFi nodes that automatically discover neighboring nodes and act as routers — is the technology that can do that. With the right software, networks of these can be self-configuring and self-repairing. It’s pure libertarianism cast in silicon, a perfectly decentralist bottom-up solution that could replace wirelines and the politico-economic choke-point they imply.

The main thing holding wireless mesh networking back is the small size of the bandwidth now allotted to it for spread-spectrum frequency hopping. With enough volume, competition would drive the price of these creatures to $20 or less per unit — low enough for individuals and community organizations to spot them everywhere there’s an electrical grid. Increments of capacity would be cheap, too; with the right software, your WiFi card could aggregate the bandwidth for as many nodes as there happen to be in radio range.

Can scalable RF-based mesh networks be built? Yes, absolutely. Information theoretic proof is available.
Can scalable 802.11 based mesh networks be built? No, absolutely not. The 802.11 MAC won't scale. Information theoretic proof also available.

I gave a design outline for a scalable fenceline based network in my blog a couple months ago. It uses a 'fiber down the fenceline' approach with FSO (google for "Ronja") to cross the street. A few geeks could build such a network, and it could scale hundreds of city blocks using mostly off-the-shelf technology. The resulting network would have far more capacity than any imaginable wireless network, and cost far less to build.

Matt: increased range is the enemy of scalable mesh networks.

Russell also gets it wrong, and (sadly) by so doing, further spreads already oft-repeated misinformation.

the reason that open source wireless drivers are hard to get is because software these days is mostly defined by software. Thus, with the right driver, you could transmit on any frequency that your output stage can handle. The FCC gets remarkably grumpy about that and won’t give permission for completely open source wireless drivers. Same thing for winmodems. Of course, a libertarian will recognize this as the all too visible dead hand of government.

The FCC doesn't care if your HAL or driver is open or not. The FCC cares if a manufacturer of equipment sells (or offers to sell) equipment that isn't compliant with FCC regulations. (Go study at the commerce clause in the US Constitution if you don't understand the difference.) The chipset vendors restrict the publication of HAL and/or driver source code via contract. They do so in order to comply with FCC regulations, which state, in part:

§ 15.15 General technical requirements.
(a) An intentional or unintentional radiator shall be constructed in accordance with good engineering design and manufacturing practice. Emanations from the device shall be suppressed as much as practicable, but in no case shall the emanations exceed the levels specified in these rules.

(b) An intentional or unintentional radiator must be constructed such that the adjustments of any control that is readily accessible by or intended to be accessible to the user will not cause operation of the device in violation of the regulations.

Between 'a' and 'b', you're screwed (at the FCC layer) if you violate the out of band emission standards of Part 15 (using a device you hope to certify under part 15 rules.)

If you don't like it, its a free market, and you are free to scrape some money together and bulld (or buy an existing/abandoned) 802.11 MAC and PHY, then have UMC or TSMC (or perhaps IBM) build the chipset you've designed (or purchased) in volume with *whatever* software you choose.

Such might be an uneconomic decision for you, since few (if any) ODMs would use a chipset that couldn't comply with 'b' (above), and this would result in a huge loss for your company. If you're a publicly traded company (as are the major 802.11 chipset vendors), your stockholders will cry 'foul' when you spend on R&D with no hope of breaking even, much less making a profit.

Still, its a free market, and you're free to try. Quite literally there is nothing to stop you. Unless, of course, you want to import those devices from whence they were manufactured, or ship them interstate, or even offer them for sale out of state.

Remember, they're *chipset*, and its unlikely that there is a foundry in Malven, PA (Eric) or Potsdam, NY (Russ).

You could put a couple FPGAs down on a board and actually build a real software defined WIFI router, but it wouldn't have a COGS low enough for you to even begin to sell them for $20 (or even $2000) and make a profit.
Jim on 02.08.06 @ 02:01 AM PST [link]

Tuesday, February 7th

Russ Nelson is a crank

In 770 should be USB master, not slave Russ Nelson shows that he doesn't know how to run Google

The Nokia 770 should be a USB master by default, not a USB slave. And it should supply power (as every USB master must). Before you get started, I understand the drawbacks. Whenever you have something which can suck your battery down, it WILL suck your battery down. However, as it currently stands, any 770 peripheral device (e.g. mouse, keyboard, or GPS) whether USB or bluetooth must have its own battery. The most desirable case is when both batteries run down at the same speed. If one battery lasts longer than the other, then you are carrying around a battery which is either more expensive or heavier than necessary. I call this problem "battery life mismatch".

Solutions for putting the 770's USB controller in 'host mode' exist, but Russ either can't find them, or can't be bothered to look for them. The links also explains that the USB controller in the 770 has to see 5VDC from the device it is plugged into before it wakes up and responds to the USB bus.

You can make a cable to do this, of course.

What really irks me about this is simply that Russell "I'm an economist" Nelson here is just complaining. Rather than allow his precious "free market" principles to ruin his day (by requiring that he purchase products that work as he desires), he chooses to berate Nokia for not designing *his* optimal product.

Somebody could also make a thumb keyboard whose top half was shaped like the 770's case. When you slide the 770 into the keyboard, the USB connector is automatically engaged, and the keyboard is immediately usable.

This would also be possible over Bluetooth, of course, and likely would have at least as much battery life as a USB solution.

USB master would also allow you to create a docking product, which would consist of a powered USB hub and slide-in case which holds the 770 at a slight angle. Into the USB hub you would plug a keyboard, mouse, hard drive, Ethernet, or any one of a hundred other USB devices.

Russell appears to want to recreate the PC in the image of the 770, completely ignoring the simple fact that the 770 was not designed as a PC replacement. The USB port on the 770 is there to make the 770 act like (and appear to be) a USB "mass storage" device. From what I can tell, Nelson will soon complain that he can't find PS/2 ports or a PCI slot on his770.

USB master would let you exchange files using a USB thumb drive, which are widely available at whatever capacity or price point you want.

While there are larger USB thumb drives, RS-MMC cards are available up to 1GB in side, and bear a no greater than 10% price "penalty" from what I can tell. Given just a little time, the RS-MMC market will likely 'catch up' to the USB thumb drive market in terms of price and capacity.

But of course, Nelson doesn't want to wait for the free market to react, he wants it his way, and he wants it *now*.

Jim on 02.07.06 @ 10:38 AM PST [link]

Monday, February 6th

More Like Extra--Whipped--Cream

Woman: We'll have the perfectly peanut butter sundae.
Store girl: Okay, sure.
Man: Come on, you know I fucking hate the taste of peanut butter!
Woman: Are you kidding me? I ate your jizz just a couple of hours ago, I think you eating the ice cream I want would be a decent fucking compromise!
Store girl: ...Um...Yeah, so...I'm taking that as extra peanut butter.

--Dylan's Candy Bar, 3rd Avenue
Jim on 02.06.06 @ 01:12 AM PST [link]

Sunday, February 5th

Best Powerpoint Slide ever

link

Jim on 02.05.06 @ 03:36 AM PST [link]

Wednesday, February 1st

The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal.

AKA Where’s the 45MB/s I Already Paid for?

Muniwireless has a piece on Bruce Kushnick’s new book, “The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal”.

I love this bit found in the comments:

Here’s an analogy: Coca Cola promises the best drink ever to every American in the nation. 100 GOOD calories, all your vitamins and minerals, lowers your cholesterol, 25% bigger size, tastes AMAZING to EVERYONE and satisfies any thirst.

Here’s the problem: they need a large amount of capital to make it happen…so if every American is willing to pay just 50% more for their current Coke products, they can make it happen.

The government is lobbied, the consumers are advertised to. Everyone says, “OK, let’s bite the bullet and do it…after all, Japan and S. Korea have been drinking the new product for years! Anyway, there’s not much we can do, since Congress has outlawed all competition and declared that this new super cola is not a food item, but a snack item; therefore they can’t mandate that it be provided at a fixed, affordable price. We HAVE to pay the higher rates if we want super cola satisfaction.”

Thing is, they never delivered. You’re now paying 75% more for the same old Coke than you did 5 years ago. Coke has made $200,000,000,000 in extra profits. They just announced a new product with 200 calories, 10% of your vitamins, 10% bigger size, that tastes a little better than normal Coke. It will only be available in NYC and LA. It will also cost 20% extra than the Coke you’re buying now. The price charged for the old Coke will not be lowered. In fact, it will be going up for everyone, even those who don’t have access to the new Coke.

Also, Coke is now lobbying for control of interstate shipping. If someone wants to consume Pepsi products, Coke will tell all of the delivery drivers under its control to drive no faster than 30 m.p.h. during the delivery. You will also have to pay Coke an extra fee for deliverying the Pepsi to you, since it’s not a Coke product. But that’s a story for another day…

Jim on 02.01.06 @ 06:49 PM PST [link]

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Jim on 02.01.06 @ 03:16 PM PST [link]

February 2006
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