Enter the Devosphere

David versus Goliath

2007-08-13T17:30:00.000-06:00

I wrote this paper (originally called “David versus Goliath: Logical approach to analyzing religious conflict of the 90s”) in 2005 (finishing August 12^th), it is presented below largely unmodified. The only changes are a new formatting (no double spacing) and a break down into sections. The rest of the text and citation is still the original.

It seems that conflict is rooted in human nature. No matter how close the world gets, conflict still emerges. No matter how hard leaders try to promote peace, at times those conflicts still escalate to violence. During the Cold War people had a relatively easy time defining themselves, they were either part of the Soviet bloc, the West, or non-aligned. This made a stage for ideological conflicts between capitalism and communism. However, the days of the Cold War are behind us and this stage of ideological conflict is well dismantled. The conflicts that plagued the world from the fall of Rome until the Enlightenment are re-emerging to the spotlight. Religious conflict has taken over as the dominating source of violence in the post-Cold War world. The words of Josef Kuschel (Kuschel in Robinson 2), from the Bosnian conflict, sum up the current state of events: “there can be no peace among nations without peace among the religions!” With the Berlin wall having fallen only sixteen years ago, that post-Cold War era is indeed short, but important in the study of modern religious conflict. The 90s present us with a clear pattern to observe in the rise of religious violence. Communal religious violence in the 90s follows a clear four step pattern.

Looking at the religious conflicts of the 90s, a four-step recipe for religious violence can be derived. First, an organized religion surfaces to fill in the power vacuum left by a collapsed or weakened government. In religiously heterogeneous states the emerging religious powers start to clash. A spark pushes the conflict to minor violence. The violence, unchecked by outside forces, quickly escalates to communal religious violence. The procedure used focuses on the political science aspect of religious violence.

Political Science scholarship offers insightful theories to explain the complex interrelationships between religious violence and politics. For instance, during the Cold War period geo-political relations were often defined as bipolar, meaning there were two dominant superpowers in the world, and some neutral states in between (Huntington, 1999 35). After the fall of the U.S.S.R in 1991 experts expected the world to become unipolar led by the United States, but it became what Samuel Huntington dubs a uni-multipolar world (36). Basically it is a world where there is one super power, several major powers, several regional powers, and the other nations (37). The United States is the only superpower and can enter a conflict against any other power as long as it has the backing of at least some major powers (37). This is well displayed by the United States' recent action in Iraq where it went it with the backing of only some major powers, namely United Kingdom and regional powers like Turkey. In "The Clash of Civilizations" and later in the book The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of the World Order Professor Huntington establishes that modern conflicts appear at fault lines between different cultures (Huntington, 1996). Huntington (1996), and experts such as Jonathan Fox (Fox, 2003) agree that religion is one of the main, if not the main difference between cultures, and therefore is one of the major causes of conflict in the world. Thus religious violence can occur in regions split between different major religions, such as the Balkans and South East Asia, without major intervention from the hegemonic actors of the world. Communal violence can emerge at the boarders or religiously different regions and have time to escalate while the major powers try to organize themselves into coalitions. Such violence is seen through out the world and can be shown with examples from the 90s.

To get the full scope of large-scale religious violence in the 90s, several examples have to be looked at. Conflicts that make good case studies are ones where different religious bodies succumb to violence and some sort of ‘religious cleansing’ policy is followed. In South Asia the Indian provinces of Kashmir and Punjab and the southern country of Sri Lanka make good examples. In Southeast Asia, Indonesia is the most religiously troubled state (Searle 1), and can serve as case study from that region. Sudan will serve as an example of an African conflict. Lastly, the former Yugoslavia makes a good European example. The six major conflicts mentioned cover all major religions. Christianity is seen in Indonesia, Sudan and Yugoslavia and its cousin Orthodox Christianity present it Yugoslavia. The Islamic faith is present in all the listed conflicts but Punjab and Sri Lanka. Hinduism displays itself in Punjab, Kashmir and Sri Lanka, and its descendant Sikhism in Punjab. Even Buddhism finds a place in those six examples, showing itself during the violence in Sri Lanka. These case studies not only encompass the world’s hotspots and major religions, but also cover the major religious violence of the 90s.

Individuals might notice that some conflicts of the 90s that are publicly known and attributed to religious violence are not listed as good case studies, and that is because they are not true religious conflicts. In the Israel-Palestine conflict the cause is territorial, not cultural or religious (Haught 137). From when the conflict started, until the emergence of Hamas in 1993 there were no religiously fanatical groups playing large parts in the conflict (137). This was because Israel was not fanatical and neither was the Palestine Liberalization Organization (137). Although the two parties in the Israel-Palestine conflict are of different religions, the conflict itself is not religious in its nature. The same can be said for the violence in Ireland, if looked into historically. The dispute between England and Ireland started in the 1100s, while the Catholic and Anglican Churches split in the 1500s (63). Today, even though the participant’s religion does often decide what side they are on, the conflict is still a liberation conflicts and neither side pursues a 'religious cleansing' agenda (63). Of course, not all conflicts can boast a record of no ‘religious cleansing’.

India: Kashmir

Plagued by conflict before and through the 90s the Kashmir province of India has been a good example of communal religious violence. Even while most of India was under British rule, the Kashmir province was having problems. The province was relatively autonomous due to the British practice of ‘indirect rule’, but the Hindu monarchy was incompetent, self absorbed and did not have good relationship with the poor Muslim majority of the province (Bose 16). The only reason the province did not succumb to chaos was the strong British influence in the area. When the British pulled out of Indian peninsula, and two independent states of Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan were created on 14-15 August 1947, Kashmir was given a choice of which of the new dominions to join (36). The Hindu monarchy forced the mostly Muslim province to join Hindu India, ever since then the Muslim people of Kashmir pushed for separation (36). Before the 90s, three wars were fought over the Kashmir province between India and Pakistan (Haught 55). In 1989 Muslim militants pushed for separation of the province, with up to 800,000 Muslims marching at one time with cries of “God is great” (pg. 56). Indian troops were unable to quell the rebellion and the bloody ‘religious cleansing’ and separation movements of Kashmir began (56).

‘Religious cleansing’ and violence stormed throughout 90s Kashmir. By 1994 9,000 people were recorded dead in the conflict by Indian authorities and 20,000 by Kashmir reporters (58). During 1996 to 1998, the rebellion calmed with all but one guerrilla group disbanded and the remaining one under heavy government scrutiny (Bose 107-136). In 1998, the year known as “South Asia’s nuclear summer”, India and Pakistan tested a total of 11 nuclear devices, hoping to bring deterrence and peace to the Kashmir region (140). However, violence escalated (140). Pakistani religious fundamentalists from the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba raided non-Muslims in the Kashmir region (140-141). The violence was not brought under control until Bill Clinton actively intervened in the affairs on 4 July 1999 (142). Sadly, in the 90s religious conflict is not confined to only one part of India.

India: Punjab

The Punjab province of India has been overcome by religious violence between the Hindus and Sikhs. Although the conflict reached its peak right after the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, it caused major bloodshed in the 1990s (Axel 5). Around 8,000 people were killed for religious reasons in 1991 and 1992 alone (Haught 53). The Sikh’s quest for Khalistan, or ‘land of the pure’, might have received little media coverage in the 90s, but it did not subside (52). With over ¾ of India’s Sikhs living in the province of Punjab, the province bore the brunt of the religious hatred against Sikhs and Sikh militant groups throughout the 90s (Purewal 2). As random as they seem, the events of Kashmir and Punjab in the 90s follow a clear pattern of religious-based violence.

The Kashmir and Punjab regions display the four criterions clearly. In 1998 the Indian government was lulled into a false sense of security by its nuclear weapons, and started to lose power in Kashmir, only to have a religious body spring up. In 1984, the government lost power due to the assassination of the prime minister only to have the Hindu and Sikh communities take matters into their own hands. The rise of tension was caused by Muslims and Sikhs rising to clash with the dominant Hindu community. The spark in Kashmir was a dormant one; the disregard of Muslim people by the pre-1947 monarchy. In Punjab the spark was the disregard for cultural differences. India attempted to control the violence, but was not powerful enough until the intervention of the United States in 1999. Today violence continues in Punjab, although the Indian government is doing a better job of containing it than the Kashmir conflict. The religious violence of South Asia is not only confined to the northern borders but is also present in its southern heart.

Sri Lanka

The teardrop nation below India, Sri Lanka, had a 30 year build up to the break out of religious violence. The Buddhist majority of the country believes that Buddha gave the Island of Lanka to create a “citadel of pure Buddhism” (Fox, 2002 449). The Hindu Tamils resented the religious discrimination against them (Austin 68). In 1948 the British left Ceylon after leaving India and a Buddhist-dominated government was established (Haught 108). In the late 1950s a Buddhist prime minister declared Sinhalese to be the only official language (108). Finally in the 1980s Sri Lanka was declared a ‘Buddhist Republic’ to avoid conflict with a Buddhist terrorist group (Austin 75). The drastic move enraged the Hindu Tamils, who formed the Liberation Tigers and rebelled (75).

Violence between the Liberation Tigers and Buddhists raged throughout the late 80s and 90s (Haught 108-110). In 1983, the Tigers ambushed an army patrol, Buddhist retaliated with the massacre of hundreds of Hindus; in response Hindus attacked Buddhist holy spots; a full civil war erupted (109). At first the largely Hindu India supported the Tigers and sent supplies until Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi switched to a state of neutrality (109). In 1987, India decided to send peacekeepers to separate the Hindus and Buddhists in Sri Lanka (Austin 69). However, India’s peacekeepers did little and the 70,000 man taskforce was withdrawn in 1990 after taking 2,000 casualties (Haught 109). After India withdrew its forces, religious murder, violence and cleansing snowballed (110). By 2001 a total of about 62,000 people were killed for religious reasons (Austin 75). The loss in Sri Lanka is devastating, but still predictable.

Sri Lanka’s religious violence follows a clear pattern. When the governing body lost power in 1948, from the loss of British rule, Hindu and Buddhist religions filled the vacuum. The Buddhist and Hindu religions started to clash from the beginning. In 1983 a fundamentalist spark from the Liberation Tigers sprung and started the fire of religious violence in Sri Lanka. After India’s failed peacekeeping in the 1987 to 1990 period the violence continued to escalate, leaving thousands dead in its wake. Through out the 90s the religious violence of Sri Lanka went unnoticed and unchecked by the rest of the world and only worsened.

Indonesia: East Timor

Another unpublicized religious conflict of the 90s is the situation in South-East Asia, mainly Indonesia. Religious conflict in South-East Asia largely depends on the violence in the world’s largest Muslim state; Indonesia (Searle, 1). The Island country boasts a population of 238 million people, the majority of whom are Muslim (CIA). The presence of religious conflict in Indonesia is caused by the weakening of the state (Searle 1). Violence in Indonesia today is mostly between Christians and the Muslim majority (Haught 169). In 1974 the United Nations granted independence to the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, only to have it invaded and annexed by Indonesia a year later (169). In 2000, a Muslim terrorist group, partially supported by the government moved into the province of Maluku (Searle 5). Christians in the area formed a counter-organization called Laskar Kristus: ‘Army of Christ’ (5). In 2 years the religious violence and cleansing between Christians and Muslims in the Indonesian province of Maluku and Kulimantan has left 5,000 dead and 500,000 displaced (4). Like the previous examples, Indonesia’s conflict was devastating, but predictable.

Like the previous conflicts a pattern is present in Indonesia. Religious powers emerged to fill the hole the lack of state power left. With Indonesia’s loss of power and control of its people, the Islamic and Christian communities took over. Fundamentalists then attacked, as seen by a terrorist group’s invasion of Maluku. Without the intervention of the Indonesian, or any other, government, religious violence escalated. The logical pattern leading to violence is not only present in Asia.

Sudan

The African country of Sudan was the site of another deadly Muslim and Christian conflict of the 90s. The first rebellions started in 1955 a year before the pre-scheduled leave of Britain (Haught 77). The Christians were afraid of Muslim oppression (77). However, the British still pulled out and a civil war erupted between the Muslims and Christians that lasted until 1972 and claimed 500,000 casualties (77). In 1983, a new Muslim president decreed Sharia for all of Sudan (78). Sharia is the Muslim law which justifies such things as amputation of limbs for theft (Allie). Christian’s were outraged by the government’s neglect of their rights and rebelled (78). In 1989, the government promised to stop the application of Muslim law in the south, but the government was not stable enough to do so and was overthrown by Muslim fundamentalists who established an Islamic theocracy (78). The fundamentalist government established close ties with the theocracy of Iran and imposed Islam on all the citizens of Sudan (78). In 1992 the United States finally recognized Sudan as a religiously extremist terrorist state (79). By 1994, around 1.5 million lives were lost in the 2^nd Sudan war and around 6 million were refugees in neighboring states (79). The turmoil in Sudan has been described as the deadliest religious conflict of the 90s (77).

Even the deadliest conflict of the 90s, however, followed a pattern. The government lost power in 1955 and 1989, the first due to British readiness to pull out and the second due to the loss of Muslim support and in both cases religions emerged to fill the power vacuum. The second case even formed a government. The Christian and Muslim communities began to clash. Without any intervention the tension quickly escalated leaving millions without their lives or lively-hood. However, this was a conflict between only two religious groups and was largely overlooked by the West because a three way conflict was already occurring in their own backyard.

Yugoslavia

Another deadly conflict in recent history is the collapse of Yugoslavia and the wars of its former provinces. Croatia and Slovenia were the first states to break free in 1991, triggering a war with Yugoslavia (Haught 28). The Catholic Church of Croatia displays the power compensation of religion and state very well. When the former Yugoslavia was in the Soviet Bloc, and state power high, the church was suppressed (Ramet 146). When Tito took Yugoslavia out of the Soviet Bloc in 1953, state power decreased and the Church was able to take more liberties (146). The Church gained more power as Tito began negotiations with the Vatican in 1965-1971 (146). In the 1970s however, Tito’s government saw stability and an increase in power, and the Church saw a loss of its liberties (147-148). When Tito’s government collapsed and another regime took its place, a power vacuum emerged and the Catholic Church as well as the Orthodox and Muslim communities rose up (Haught 29). Tension quickly built between the three sides and led to violence (29).

The bloody conflict of the 90s that is always associated with the former Yugoslavia was in a state of religious hatred and violence. As Haught wrote, “the only actual difference between Croats, Serbs and Bosnians is their religion” (Haught 26). The communists of former Yugoslavia managed to suppress religious violence for decades but with the communist collapse it reemerged (29). In 1991 Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence based on religious reasons (Robinson 2), but started a non-religious conflict that took the lives of 10,000 people (Haught 29). In 1992 Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina voted for independence (Robinson 2), and instantly faced armed resistance from the Orthodox Christians who were, “still fighting to keep Islam from spreading”, as Dusan Simic voiced (Simic in Haught 30). Serbia came to aid the Orthodox Christians of Bosnia, and under president Slobodan Milosevic called for the “ethnic cleansing” of Bosnia (31). The Serbians wanted to eradicate Muslim and Catholics in Bosnia (31). Croatia came to help their fellow Catholics and after a while turned on the Muslims, causing a three way conflict (31-33). The same “religious cleansing” was seen in 1998 against the Muslims and Catholics of Kosovo (Robinson 3). The conflicts of former Yugoslavia were very much caused by the clash of religious groups (Tovy 41). Although the devastation of former Yugoslavia is often attributed to the Serbs, it could be argued that the major world powers are also culpable for not acknowledging the logical and sequential line of events that lead to religious violence.

The Yugoslavian conflict displays all four hypotheses clearly. The loss of state power and rise of religious power is displayed well in the Croatian example. It is also seen when Yugoslavia falls apart and the state loses all power in 1992, and has to resort to religious power. The rising religious bodies in the Yugoslavian conflict were the Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim communities (Robinson 3). The catalyst was a dormant one, carrying over from before communist times (Haught 25). The violence went unchecked while the major powers disputed between themselves and death overtook Yugoslavia. Sadly, something as unexpected as Yugoslavia followed a precise pattern.

Conclusion

All the major conflicts of the 90s supported the four hypotheses set out earlier. The rise of religious bodies to fill the power vacuum left by governments that have lost power or collapsed is well shown. The best examples are when the British left Sudan and the Christians united, and when the communist regime of Yugoslavia collapsed and the country split in three. The clash of different churches is best seen in Kashmir, Punjab and Sri Lanka. The three South Asian territories clearly display the clash between the Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Buddhist communities. The sparks that pushed normal tension to violence are varied in the 90s. In Punjab the spark is displayed as cultural disregard. In Sudan the same spark goes as far as a fundamentalist coup and imposition of Islamic law. Unchecked religious violence and its drastic escalation is seen throughout Kashmir, Indonesia and Yugoslavia. In Kashmir the violence raged for a while without being contained. In Indonesia that same violence still rages. In the former Yugoslavia the violence was contained in pathetic ways and countless people died. Religious violence developed a strong noticeable pattern.

Throughout the 90s communal religious violence appears to have followed a distinguishable pattern. This pattern is evident in the examples illustrated above, but what world leaders will do with it is not. As humans settle into the second millennium the application of this pattern still remains unanswered; as does the haunting proverb: “those who do not know the past are doomed to repeat it”. The world remains in the hands of its people and leaders. It is humanity’s choice what to do with the world and the planet can only hope that the new generation will find the right decisions.

Reference

Allie, Shouket. “Muslim Personal Law In South Africa”, Law and Sharia Consultants.

2005. Law and Sharia Consultants. 12 April, 2005

Austin, Dennis. “Terrorism, Sri Lanka and a Letter From President Kumaratunga”, The

Round Table, pg. 67-75, 2002.

Axel, Brian K. The Nation’s Tortured Body: Violence, Representation, and the

Formation of a Sikh “Diaspora”. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.

Bose, Sumantra. Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace.

Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003.

CIA. “Indonesia”, The World Factbook. 10 February, 2005. Central Intelligence Agency.

12 April, 2005

Fox, Jonathan. “In the Name of God and Nation : The Overlapping Influence of

Separatism and Religion on Ethnic Conflict”, Social Identities, pg. 434-455, 2002.

---------- . “Ethno-religious Conflict in the Third World: The Role of Religion as a Cause

of Conflict”, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, pg 101-125, Spring 2003.

Haught, James A. Holy Hatred: Religious Conflict of the 90’s.

Anherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1995.

Huntington, Samuel. “The Clash of Civilizations”, Foreign Affairs, pg 22-49

Summer 1993.

---------- . The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order.

New York, NY: Touchstone, 1996.

---------- . “The Lone Superpower”, Foreign Affairs, pg 35-49, March/April 1999.

Purewal, Shinder. Sikh Ethnonationalism and the Political Economy of Punjab.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Ramet, Sabrina P. Balkan Babel: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the Death of Tito

To Ethnic War. Colorado: Westview Press, Inc., 1996.

Robinson, B. “Religious aspects of the Yugoslavia-Kosovo conflict”, Religious

Tolerance.org. 26 June, 2002. Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance.

12 April 2005

Searle, Peter. “Ethno-Religious Conflict: Rise or Decline? Recent Developments in

Southeast Asia”, Contemporary Southeast Asia, pg 1-11, April 2002.

Tovy, Tal. “The Muslim-Croat Civil War in Central Bosnia – A Military History, 1992-

1994. Reviewed by Tal Tovy”, Religion in Eastern Europe, pg 40-42, Dec. 2004.

Book Review: Programming the Universe

2007-06-13T07:27:00.001-06:00

It is often hard to enjoy a science text, even if it is one of those pop-science books. However, when I was looking around the McGill bookstore this book just jumped out at me. Some might say it is because I am a comp sci and physics major looking to go into quantum computing, but I think it was divine intervention: the sort of divine intervention that is only possible from the power of a computing universe.

Seth Lloyd makes the obscurity of quantum computing very accessible in ‘Programming the Universe’. In its pure form the book will not teach you much about anything, but if you have some basic knowledge in computer science and physics and realize some of the implications of the computational paradigm then the book is really stunning. It kept me captivated as I read almost all of it (except for a little of the start that I read in the bookstore) on the eight hour bus ride to New York.

Seth Lloyd is a professor of mechanics at MIT and likes to be known as a quantum masseur. He finds ways to convince atoms to compute for him and is credited with making the first plausible quantum computer model in 1993. In the book he presents his new way to look at the physical world; in terms of information and computation. He rewrites the second law of thermodynamics to deal with information as opposed to energy, and with that law in hand, delves into the basics of quantum computing and qubits. He does not go too deeply into the inner-workings of quantum computing but instead expands it to the universal stage. He discusses the Universe as one huge quantum computer computing itself. To finish off, he discusses the informational revolutions that have happened since the Big Bang and talks about the place of humans in the picture. Through out the book, Lloyd keeps a good sense of humor to avoid making the material dry. My only issue with ‘Programming the Universe’ was that at times it was far too dumbed-down and spent too much time talking about the obvious or simple. In general, it is a very good read and I recommend it.

Screenshot Contests

2007-04-14T03:20:00.000-06:00

Today I came across an article on Phil Ryu’s blog announcing the winners of the fake Leopard screenshot competition. The contest is just an interest builder for the hype-loving Mac community, but I think it has a great underlying idea. Using design contests can do a lot of good for big software developers like Microsoft, Apple, Google et al. Through a community effort like this a large company can accomplish several things at once:

Build hype
Find out what features users want
Find new talent

To make such a contest a true success, the “judging panel” has to be removed, or at least loose so of its power. For true involvement it is best to get not only images from the public, but also the decision on what is best. A panel could exist to monitor the process, and maybe select qualifiers (check for ideas that are infeasible or could never be implemented or are inconsistent with company themes). Of course, the software developer can not take all of their visual ideas from contests, some mystique is essential, but I think such competitions could serve a lot of good for big name companies.

Oh, and if you were curious about the winner of the Leopard challenge It is Eric Patterson’s submission:

I don’t know enough about daily Mac use to make real comments on the image, but to mirror the words of Wil Shipley: I think this guy has a thing for Asian girls.

Men Look at Faces

2007-04-14T02:33:00.000-06:00

A little while ago I made a post about what all guys knew deep down: men look at crotches.

“Women look almost exclusively at the targets face, while trying to gather information about the subject. Men, however, spend about half their time inspecting the face, and the other half inspecting the genitals.”

That study of course, was done with clothed subjects, but what happens when we are viewing pornography? According to a recent study when viewing pornography, men pay more attention to the face than women do. Surprisingly women concentrate more on the genitalia. The lead author states:

"Men looked at the female face much more than women, and both looked at the genitals comparably,"

Strange? I think so. I definitely want to see a follow up study.

Movie Review: AFTF

2007-04-12T11:03:00.000-06:00

A couple of days ago I watched the authorized director’s cut of America: Freedom to Fascism (available on Google video). The Aaron Russo documentary looked like promising at first, but in the end was very dissatisfying. The documentary deals with how ever since 1913 America has been slowly turning fascist. Specifically the film talks about the illegality of income tax, the evil IRS and how bankers rule the world. The movie seems to be tailored to delusional capitalists that want to see someone more capitalist than themselves in hopes of feeling better.

The whole film is badly edited and badly composed. Random black screens with quotes and text are inserted through out. They interrupt the flow at illogical places and are never consistent as to the narrator reading them or not reading them. Aaron tries to narrate the movie himself, much like Moore does in his documentaries, except Aaron comes of as unintelligent, highly biased and flippant. The only good part of the film was not having to listen to the standard narrator voice at first. However, you soon realize that Aaron has no voice acting skill and his constant nagging becomes annoying.

As an interviewer and debater Russo lacks even the most basic competence. He forms arguments like “American has a central bank like the commi bastards in USSR” and then goes on about how it is bad to have a private bank running the United States. I don’t think he understands a basic principle of the communist central banks: it is controlled by the state and thus the people. When interviewing public figures he does not listen to them and gives himself more speaking time than the people he is interviewing. The point of interviewing a public figure and then showing more footage of yourself talking than the public figure escapes me.

To make matters worse, Russo constantly boasts about being a famous, award winning director. I think the random woman in the first street interview says it best:

“Russo: My name is Aaron Russo I produced the mo…

Woman: is this a joke; am I on a gag show?”

I do not recommend this video at all, and the only reason it has gotten any stars is because it is available for free on Google. Aaron Russo does not belong directing “documentaries” he is better as a random person on American are NOT stupid.

Steorn Orbo

2007-04-11T22:34:00.000-06:00

An Irish company Steorn has claimed creating a machine that produces clean, free energy:

"What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy... The energy isn't being converted from any other source such as the energy within the magnet. It's literally created. Once the technology operates it provides a constant stream of clean energy."

The company has tried to sound official by publishing a full page challenge to the scientific community in the Economist. I have not seen the ad myself, but I am really disappointed with the editors of the Economist if they actually published that ad… I mean, how fake can you get? No much faker than this. For any readers that are not familiar with Physics, this statement is in direct contradiction to the first law of thermodynamics. The first law reads:

“The increase in the internal energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the amount of heat energy added to the system minus the work done by the system on the surroundings.”

Looked from another perspective, this means that a system can not gain energy without taking it from somewhere. Steorn claims that they have somehow found a way to do this, in other words, they claim to have created a perpetual motion machine. No patent office recognizes perpetual motion machines or anything else that violates the fundamental and well established laws of physics, and hence there is no patent for the full technology, although the company has claimed to have patented parts that make up the system.

The biggest reason this seems like a fake (other than the fact that they are claiming to have violated one of the fundamental laws of physics) is their finances:

In the period between 2002 and 2006 (dates for which they have all major expenses reported) they spent a total of 2,749,645 euro on research and development. Over the same time period, they spent 1,531,520 euro on management and marketing and 2,114,744 euro on administrative costs (total of 3,646,263 euro). In other words, they spent more money managing their pathetic little company than researching; a whopping 63.3% of their money was spent on managerial issues. Also, the 3 million euro budget is far too low to develop such a breathtaking technology so quickly. The company states that they are about 20 people, and if we do a quick calculation (assuming these guys don’t work for free, which is a safe assumption based on their capitalist intentions) taking that the average engineer of the caliber need to develop such an innovative idea is paid around 100k euro per year. We do a simple multiplication 100k * 20 people * 5 years = 10 million euro spent of just staff, while their total expenses are a mere 6,395,909 euro. To meet their spending, if they only paid their workers and did not pay for building rent or buying hardware or anything else to actual develop their technology, the average salary of the employees comes out to 63,959 euro a year.

To make matters worse, their team does not even look like scientists and has no credible people in it. The whole thing seems like a bad hoax and an embarrassment to anyone this company associates itself with. My first guess (from reading their “jury” deal) is that this company just wants to make some easy cash ripping off legitimate research facilities and stuff it up their capitalists asses, or pass it on to the IRA or some other crap like that. This is pathetic.

Movie Review: Bon Cop Bad Cop

2007-04-01T22:24:00.000-06:00

I saw Bon Cop Bad Cop for the first time a while ago (first semester) but I did not have a review section back then (except for books, of course). I watched it again a couple of days ago, and decided to do a proper review this time. I don’t think most people have heard of this movie outside of Quebec, and I doubt anyone has heard of it outside of Canada. However, in Quebec it is a huge hit and for good reason. The film manages to dig to the core of being Canadian (including the French-English tension) in a great bilingual style.

The story is uniquely Canadian, centered on hockey and Quebec-Ontario relations. The villain of the movie is disappointed by the export of the Montreal “Patriots” (Canadians) to the states and is willing to go to any length to stop it. The plot combines comedy, drama and action into a well balanced and well paced package. You never feel like the movie is slow or rushed. Every scene is properly selected and directed.

The only scene that could have been taken out of the movie was the random sex scene in the middle. It did not really move the movie forward (except for reinforcing the French character’s separatist views, but you could figure it out as is). However, you can’t have a popular movie now-a-day without at least some sex. All in all, the movie is near perfect, and as much as I hate to admit it to the Frenchies, the movie deserves a full five starts.

Quebec Election

2007-03-26T22:45:00.000-06:00

The Quebec election has come to a close. I have no clue what that means for me, since I have not been following politics and especially Quebec politics recently. However, looking at the numbers there are some surprising things. The seats were split up by:

Liberal Party – 48

Action Democratique – 41

Parti Quebecois – 36

That is a very drastic change from the last election (2003):

Liberal Party – 76

Parti Quebecois – 45

Action Democratique – 4

But in general, Quebec politics seems to be very swingy, if we look at the one more election back (1998):

Parti Quebecois – 76

Liberal Party – 48

Action Democratique – 1

It is good to see Quebec voting on the left and for me it surprising to see Quebec caring so little about PQ, especially with the recent Liberal scandals and such. The ADQ leader is definitely happy today. Good for him.

Blogs for You

2007-03-26T21:52:00.000-06:00

As some of you might have noticed, I updated the look of my blog yesterday. I still need to fix all the crappy JavaScript and such, but I think I like this new look more. I am still not switching to blogger’s new widget system, but I will hopefully improve some features of my blog. Things to look forward to:

Fixed JavaScript
Collapsing Navigation and DevoLinks
Updates to Links section
Updates DevoPlace
More and Better Random DevoPics (they don’t work at all right now)
And of course, more posts.

The thing that inspired me to change around my layout (color scheme more than layout to be perfectly honest) was working on Lynden’s blog. Notice the similarity between his visual theme and my new look (also notice the powered by DFR bit in the top right; I have no shame).

The inspiration behind this post, however, is to point out some blogs I like and follow that I have not added to my DevoLinks yet (although expect them there in the next few moments).

Random Musings

This is a well written little blog by Oliver. Like me, he has a tendency to abandon things after a little while, but hopefully he will stick with blogging. So far the blog is only three posts long, but they are all interesting and will written (although I guess the latest post is just one big quote).

Jesse

I’ve been following Jesse’s blog for a while now. It is a sizable 40 post blog (same size as this blog) and a lot of it seems to deal with Jesse’s personal experiences, but that is a lot of fun to read. I recommend this, but if you don’t know Jesse and read his blog, that might be a little bit creepy.

Know♣Justice

This is Lynden’s brand new blog. His old MSN Live blog was interesting and this one promises to be even better (since it doesn’t involve Microsoft).

kottke.org

This blog is huge and updates extensively. It keeps me up to date on the blogosphere. You can read a lot of funny stuff here, but mostly it is just a link blog. So it usually links to various outside sources for your enjoyment.

Kraezymann Forums

Not a blog, but a forum. It has moved to be hosted by Ben at happyspork. Go there and make an account and join in on the discussions.

Men Look at Crotches

2007-03-14T23:17:00.000-06:00

A kottke.org article led me to an interesting study done by Jakob Nielsen. The study delves into how to better present articles to an audience. It concludes many useful things for written articles such as including subheadings, bullets and good white space. More interesting however, was their findings in where different genders focus their attention when viewing images.

Women look almost exclusively at the targets face, while trying to gather information about the subject. Men, however, spend about half their time inspecting the face, and the other half inspecting the genitals. I find this amusing more than anything else.

The research into better formatting of content was interesting, but the section on men’s fixation on genitalia definitely held the most of my attention. I guess that tells us something about formatting data: include more interesting content.

Movie Review: 300

2007-03-14T21:53:00.000-06:00

There must be an internal competition in Hollywood for the most dead bodies and/or soldiers in one shot, and 300 is defiantly leading. The movie, with its blood splatter title promises action, blood and… more action. It delivers stunningly. Arthur Millar’s graphic novel sheds the confines of pages and comes to life with a distinct comic book flavour in this action flick.

The movie as not nearly as stylized as predecessors like Sin City, but still makes you feel like you are taking part in a good graphic novel. Each shot is well planned and well staged, like a picture. With the constant slow motion you have plenty of time to appreciate the frame and small details of the shot, as well as marvel at the amount of buffing up the actors had to do for this movie. The action sequences are cleanly shot, full of body and, of course, blood. The filmmakers don’t follow the cheap strategy of shaky camerawork and constant angle changes to represent action, but instead depend on the physical power of their actors, extras and stuntmen. This approach to filming makes for beautiful and rewarding action sequences. The movie’s stylization also makes it more accessible to the viewer who might have found the style of Sin City or Sky Captain too heavy. By weaving between the harsh and noble sides of Sparta, the movie establishes a very dark theme. The opening shot of baby skulls, already sets you on the track for a dark and gloomy story. The storytelling itself captures comic book elements through a overlooking narrator and short, to the point, dialogue.

The overall dialogue in the move is very weak. The constant mismatch between the characters’ personas and words beg for a better writer. Every word uttered is needlessly dramatic, and quickly looses its effect; much like people that overuse powerful quotes, the writers have squandered all the drama inherent in their words. Thankfully, the story is not word driven, but action driven.

The story itself is well known and predictable. You never face surprises, and everything is clear cut and expected. The only thing that can surprise you is how many kick ass moves the choreographers can imagine. It feels like the writers tried to incorporate surprise and shock into the story, but they failed at it. The story is interesting, and hints at history, but in general is lacking.

In the end, you don’t watch this movie for dialogue or story. This movie was created for watching muscular men and women in kick-ass action scenes. The movie achieves everything it promises, but does not excel past this. This is perhaps the only reason it can not rate about a four on my scale. However, all in all this is a wonderful movie, and I recommend it to all action fans.

For a more positive analysis, read Oliver’s review.

DRM on Independent Content

2007-03-13T19:54:00.000-06:00

About a week ago, I read a post by Kumaran on the reasons for DRM on independent content. He goes into some detail of the debate and outlines his stance as that independent music that could be non-DRM should be kept DRM’ed to avoid confusion with the Apple users. His opinion is largely based on small labels and if a major label does switch over to non-DRM music he believes that apple should go ahead and draw the distinction between DRM and non-DRM music to pressure other labels:

“An entire major music label's catalog of music on iTunes in a non-DRM'ed format is a significant enough of chunk of music that I think would cover enough people's music purchases to make it worth it. Of course, people will still probably get frustrated, but such a move would be made moreso to pressure the other labels into following suit.”

Digital Rights Management

In the context of the iTunes Store, DRM means that there are some restrictions on the way music can be used. Basically, the music can be copied to an unlimited number of CDs or iPods, but the digital version must always stay in a proprietary format compatible with iPods. Also, the digital version has some other restrictions on it (like only being playable on 5 computers, etc.). In the end, DRM in general give minor problems to the users, and do nothing against pirates. Pirates are still able to copy music to a CD (thus stripping DRM) and then from a CD to mp3 and distribute. However, DRM can not simply be exterminated, because Big Music backs DRM.

Gruber’s Solution

In a blog post, John Gruber proposes that iTunes could label DRM and non-DRM music much like it does with explicit and non-explicit music. By introducing a simple tag to the left of a song title, the confusion between the two rights could easily be avoided. Kumaran counters with:

“Yes, such a point is valid, however, the difference between DRM'ed and non-DRM'ed content is far more significant than the difference between Explicit and Clean content. Explicit and Clean content can pretty much be used in much the same way. That situation just isn't possible with DRM'ed and non-DRM'ed content being sold at the same location.”

DRM’ed and non-DRM’ed music can also be used in the same way… listened to. DRM or non-DRM does not change how a normal user (non-pirate) uses music. Either way, they get their song, put it on their iPod and enjoy listening to it. The only thing that is affected is the subtleties of sharing. Most users already deal with these differences due to the fact that they don’t buy all their music from iTunes but download some from limewire or indie sites like www.3hive.com . From Steve Jobs’ thoughts on Music:

“under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM.”

This slight sharing difference is much simpler than some more significant music differences users’ deal with. Some of their music is in mp3, some in wav, some in Apple’s aac, some in other formats (ogg anyone?). Some music is 8bit, some 16bit, and myriad other differences. I think it is naïve to think that iPod users will be confused or frustrated by the presence of non-DRM music in the iTunes Store.

To add extra motivation for supporting the difference between DRM and non-DRM music one has to consider the pressure of DRM labeling and artists opinions. Some artists pride themselves on the fact that their music is not part of the corporate system of mainstream music. Some bands enjoy their music being non-DRM and would like to see it that way on iTunes, so their fans can get their songs and share them any way they like. Also, by introducing a distinction between DRM and non-DRM music Apple can collect data and what music users prefer. Then they can turn to the big companies and start talking in their language of money but simply bringing up stats and saying: “look small label X made twice the money as equivalent small label Y by selling non-DRM music”. Maybe then Big Music would listen.

I think the reason Apple is really continuing to sell all their music as DRM is to hold on to their proprietary rights. Regardless of what Steve Jobs publishes as “his opinions” on DRM music, Apple is still a heartless capitalist corporation. By sticking to DRM, they make sure people can only easily listen to the music on their iPods and not competitors. This way iTunes Store and iPod become a bundle and exclusive “cool” society that other more open MP3 users can’t join.

Other Solution

The easiest way for users to easily see the difference between DRM music and non-DRM music is to just offer them in two different, popular formats. Continue to offer DRM’ed music in aac and offer non-DRM in the more common mp3 format. However, Apple would never do that… how would that continue their obscene profit margins? This might actually be civil.

Summary

DRM is independent content is wrong. If the independent content wants to be DRM free, then let them be. For the end user everything is the same, but the provider of content can sleep a little better at night, knowing they are not part of Big Music’s capitalist machine.

The Short Human History

2007-03-12T16:30:00.000-06:00

Today, at Daily KOS I came across a very thought provoking article on how to think about the scale of human history. The article discusses human history in increments of a single human lifespan. It illustrates just how short human history is:

“Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., one the United States' great historians, is less than two lifetimes removed from a world where the United States did not exist. Through Mr. Schlesinger, you're no more than three away yourself. That's how short the history of our nation really is.

Not impressed? It's only two more life spans to William Shakespeare. Two more beyond that, and the only Europeans to see America are those who sailed from Greenland. You're ten lifetimes from the occupation of Damietta during the fifth crusade. Twenty from the founding of Great Zimbabwe and the Visigoth sack of Rome. Make it forty, and Theseus, king of Athens, is held captive on Crete by King Minos, the Olmecs are building the first cities in Mexico, and the New Kingdom collapses in Egypt.

Sixty life times ago, a man named Abram left Ur of the Chaldees and took his family into Canaan. Abram is claimed as the founder of three great religions. A few lifetimes before that, and you've come out the bottom of that dime. You're that close to it.”

In your lifetime alone you will add one more percent to the length of the human experience, a whole 25% to American history and more than double the length of the computer age. This really makes one lifetime seem a lot more important on the face of human history (as long as you don’t consider the vast number of people in one age category).

Application of BECs

2007-03-06T03:16:00.000-06:00

In my previous post, I discussed what Bose-Einstein condensates are and how they are created. It is great to have a new state of matter, but it is not that breathtaking if there is no application. This post is going to deal with the application of Bose-Einstein condensates and is mostly based on Wolfgang Ketterle’s second McGill lecture, given on March 2^nd. I incorporated some of my own understand and research into this, especially to simplify concepts. The two main benefits of BECs I will deal with is the creation of an atomic toolbox and increased headway into room temperature superconductors.

Atomic Physics Toolbox

There have always been differences between theoretical and applied physicists. Theorists love using perfect models to make prediction and calculations. Applied physicists have to use real materials with imperfections and need constant estimates. The imprecision of applied physics has slowed the field down a little, staying several steps behind theoretical physics. MIT hopes their BECs and cooling technology can serve as an atomic toolbox for many-body scientists to develop new materials.

The nanokelvin toolbox makes new physics possible. With the temperature approaching 0.5 nanokelvins and less, several rare physical phenomena can be observed. As explained in the previous post, the BEC phase transitions can be studied at this temperature. Also the atoms start to display quantum reflection and coherent chemistry. More importantly, at such low temperatures, the intermolecular forces overshadow kinetic energy and strong molecular interactions can be observed. These phenomena enhance knowledge of quantum mechanics and in many cases many-body physics as well.

MIT’s cold samples also simplify manipulation. When particles in a sample have lower kinetic energies they become easier to trap and move around. The magnetic field needed to confine the sample is significantly lower than its microkelvin equivalent. Individual atoms can be easily trapped via lasers. A laser as weak as a standard pointer starts to have enough power to trap and transport atoms. The ease of manipulation makes making optical traps, lattices and atom chips simpler. Less energy can be invested after cooling to achieve better results.

Many-body physicists can use the nanokelvin samples to solve systems with strong interactions and correlations. Normally, a gas has very weak interaction due to individual particles’ high kinetic energies. When super cooled the gas starts to display solid-like interaction and cohesion, but on a much easier to study scale. The ultra low density and ultra low pressure (reviling mediocre vacuum chambers in pressure) make the sample constituents far apart and organized in perfect structures. The dominant intermolecular forces make the system a good modeling tool for more complex many-body systems. The toolbox serves as a long awaited balance between theoretical and real systems.

Superconductors

First, it is vital to understand what makes superconductors important. Currently, semiconductors waste energy during transmission due to internal resistance to electron flow. To avoid this, the resistance on individual electrons inside a conductor has to be eliminated, so that the electrons can travel freely. The creation of effective superconductors has applications ranging from fusion, to medicine, to computer science.

Although, seemingly impossible, superconductivity has already been achieved. The current superconductors are hard to construct and operate at temperatures of 20 Kelvin or less. In 1986, “high temperature” superconductors were found, that operated at around 90 Kelvin. Most semiconductors’ resistance decreases with temperature, but even at 0 Kelvin, standard conductive matters like silver and copper still display a nonzero resistance. Superconductors work because some materials’ resistance abruptly drops to zero at a certain “critical temperature”. The reason that superconductors behave the way they do is explained by the Ginzburg-Landau theory and BCS theory. The first examines the macroscopic properties by mathematics and the second explains the quantum mechanics.

Under the BCS theory electrons pair up in Cooper pairs to facilitate resistance free travel. Normally electrons repel each other due to Coulomb’s law (opposites attract, alike repel). However, under low enough temperatures and proper magnetic conditions a positive charge develops between a pair of electrons, letting them overcome their natural repulsion and pair up.

Before pairing up a single electron is made up of one constituent and thus is a fermion. Fermions differ from Bosons (the ones that make BEC) in the number of constituents, or more fundamentally in their spin. Fermions have half-integer spin and Bosons have integer spin. Due to the Pauli Exclusion Principle (which explains why matter occupies space) the fermions are unable to gather at the low state like bosons. This exclusion leads to fermions having high kinetic energy even at 0 Kelvin and not being able to form Bose-Einstein Condensates. However, when two half-integers are added, an integer value is achieved and the possibilities expand.

A Cooper pair is considered a boson. The whole pair when created has an integer spin, allowing several pairs to accumulate on the lowest energy level. By accumulating several pairs at low energy state, a Bose-Einstein condensate can be formed. The only big difference between a standard boson and a Cooper pair remains in the spacing of the constituents. In a normal boson they are close together, but in a Cooper-pair they are farther apart and the orbit might even cross over other Cooper pairs. This “far apart” state of Cooper pairs as bosons is known as the BCS state.

Sadly, BCS’s unlike BECs do not display superfluid properties. Superfluids differ from normal liquids in that they experience no friction. Since a superfluid is a matter-wave (much like a BEC) it also displays various other strange properties. When rotated, a superfluid can only take on integer values for speed. This leads to a mosaic pattern of rotating mini-tornados created in the rotating sample (as opposed to the single tornado effect of a normal liquid). More importantly if superfluidity could be achieved for electrons then new superconductors will be possible.

Achieving superfluidity for electrons is precisely what Ketterle’s team at MIT is doing. Currently they can not work with electron samples, so they pair up Lithium ions (which are fermions) into boson pairs. Then, through various manipulations and cooling they achieve a transition, or hybrid state between a BEC and a BCS. In this state the sample displays superfluidity. The temperatures are still in the nanokelvin range, but temperatures can not be compared directly between different materials. Values have to be scaled by density to get the proper results. When the Lithium sample is scaled for density it turns out that it is actually 200 times warmer than a helium superfluid and 20 times warmer than the hottest superconductor. That means once such a technology can be applied to electrons and scaled for density, superconductors will be possible significantly above room temperature.

Conclusion

Should we expect Cooper pair super conductors to be part of our gadgets in ten years? I doubt it. However, the field is moving quickly and in the coming years’ electron BEC/BCS hybrid forms should appear and physics should begin with them. Also, the atomic physics toolbox should help physicists and engineers develop better materials for everything from clothes to space shuttles. There should defiantly be a lot of cool (and maybe even room-temperature) science over the coming decade.

Bose-Einstein Condensate

2007-03-04T01:40:00.000-06:00

On March 1^st and 2^nd I attended two lectures by the physics Nobel laurite (2001) Wolfgang Ketterle on Bose-Einstein condensates and his current research. Most of this post comes from the notes I took at his lectures, textbooks, common sense and various online articles.

Most people know at least three states of matter: solids, liquids and gasses. From popular science and TV some even know a state of matter like plasma. To make plasma, normally a gas is superheated (among other things). Now, if instead we cooled the gas to extremely cold temperatures, we would get something else. That something else (for bosonic atoms) is known as a Bose-Einstein condensate.

Bose-Einstein Condensates

Before the quantum revolution in physics, atoms were thought of as particles and nothing more. Atoms were thought to follow the rules of classical mechanics and the field of physics was regarded as dead. However, scientists like Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg and Schrödinger brought life back to physics by seeing the holes that classical mechanics left on the atomic level, and proposing the theory of quantum mechanics. Among the countless new principles that came from quantum mechanics, came the realization that atoms (and all other matter, for that matter) display wave like properties. Normally wave like properties are not observed in atoms, unless they are standing still, or close to it. To achieve that, the free energy of atoms has to be eliminated by cooling.

Cooling is precisely what Wolfgang Ketterle at MIT and his colleagues from other universities accomplished in 1995 when they formed the first BEC. Sodium gas was cooled until it reached the nanokelvin range and at that temperature the waves of individual sodium atoms overlapped so much that they formed one large matter-wave known as a Bose-Einstein Condensate. The men responsible for displaying the condensate Einstein and Bose predicted in 1924/25 received their Nobel Prizes in 2001 and currently continue their work on BECs, superfluids and fermonic condensates.

To easily picture a BEC it is best to think about lasers and light bulbs. A light bulb emits various wavelengths in various directions. A laser does its best to emit one continuous wave. Standard gasses are like a light bulb, they are randomly bouncing around in random directions. A BEC is like a laser, it is one continuous matter wave.

Temperature, Cooling and Measurement

We all have a basic understand of temperature from experiencing it first hand. Winter is cold, summer is hot. But what does temperature really mean? Under physical rules temperature is just another measure of energy; a measure of free energy in a system to be more precise. In a gaseous system, almost all of the free energy is expressed as kinetic energy, so when a gas is cooled it looses kinetic energy. At room temperature air molecules move at around 300m/s. At the temperatures achieved in the MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms these same molecules would move at around 0.001m/s. In other words: it is so cold you might not even make it to the mall.

The record temperature achieved by MIT is 450 picokelvin (4.5*10^-10 Kelvin). Comparatively the temperature of outer space is around 3 Kelvin and room temperature is around 300 Kelvin (273.15 Kelvin = 0 Celsius). Basically, the temperature inside the experimental chamber is about a trillion times colder than your room.

Cooling atoms to such a low temperature poses many technical challenges. Ketterle’s team overcomes these challenges by laser and evaporative cooling the system. The sample is held inside an evacuated vacuum chamber by a magnetic field while lasers, microwaves and other magnetic fields are used to cool the system.

Laser cooling is the first step. Intuitively we perceive that shinning a light on something makes it hotter. That phenomenon is based on absorption of light. In laser cooling the light is bounced off the atoms in such a way that it has more energy leaving than it did entering. That seems impossible at first, but due to the Doppler Effect (also known as blue-shift) it is possible. The light is tuned to a frequency slightly below one that the atoms can absorb, and thus atoms can only absorb light when they are flying towards the light (when the light is blue-shifted to the right frequency by their movement). The atoms release the photon right after at the proper frequency, and thus energy is lost. The process looks very exciting. Sadly laser cooling can not take the atoms to the nanokelvin temperatures, so evaporative cooling has to be used.

For evaporative cooling, Ketterle states a very good metaphor: a coffee cup. Everyone knows what happens to a cup of coffee if it is left out on the table for a long time: it cools down. One of the reasons the coffee cools down, is because all the atoms are bouncing around inside of it, and atoms with high-kinetic energy are more likely to get enough energy to fly out of the cup. Thus, over time more and more atoms with higher than average kinetic energy are lost and the system cools.

If you are in a hurry, and you need to cool the coffee, then you blow on it. Blowing agitates the system more and helps speed the process of high-energy particles escaping. Evaporative cooling at MIT follows a similar principle. The sample is put in a “cup” and then the machine “blows” on it.

The atoms are suspended in a bowl shaped magnetic trap. The particles of various energies bounce around, and higher energy particles are more likely to reach the corners of the trap. At the corners, other magnetic fields or microwaves move the escaping particles away from the main system and thus the sample is quickly cooled to nanokelvin temperatures.

Once everything is cooled down, the scientists need to actually have a way to measure the temperature. Since it is impossible to just stick a thermometer into the system, another way needs to be used. Ketterle’s team simply uses gases’ property of expansion to measure an exact kinetic energy of the particles and thus the exact temperature. The magnetic field is turned off, and the sample starts to drop towards the ground and expand in all directions. The team takes a shadow picture of the sample as it drops and then records the temperature based on expansion of the system. This method is extremely precise and accurate, but sadly the sample is destroyed,

How to Know a BEC When You See One

The way a BEC is detected by the researchers is based on the density of the sample when it is dropped, and how it disassociates. When a standard gas sample is dropped it expands more or less evenly and has a density distribution that looks like a three dimensional bell curve. When the gas has transformed into a BEC it assumes the shape of the container (even though it does not expand to fill the whole container) and it is much denser. The whole process is recorded and analyzed with black and white shadow photography. If a BEC is present, then a sharp peek in density is observed.

Snow Kiting Greenland

2007-03-03T00:49:00.000-06:00

What is snow kiting?

For any dedicated blog followers, you might have seen the pictures of a really big kite strapped to me in the right hang sidebar. Well, add skis or a snowboard to the equation and you get snow kiting. The sport involves taking a very large kite (mine was 17m^2) and then using it to propel you, or send you flying. Some of the jumps possible are very extreme.

Greenland

Strapping yourself to an airborne sail can be used as a very effective mode of transportation. With no gas and no motor, you can move at speeds of around 60km per hour on flat land if the wind is right. All you really need is flat land, snow and wind. Where can you find all this? In Greenland.

That is what one team of adventurers did. They strapped themselves to kites and set out to cross Greenland from the North to the South in less than 40 days. They ended up setting the speed record for crossing snow… twice (once early in the expedition and then a huge record in the end). The whole trip took an astonishing 21 days for 2300km. The new 24hour record the team set was 442.7km in one day, demolishing the old record of 271.

I would love to do something like this myself, with a team of friends. To one up this first team of course, I propose using sleds instead of skis. The team reported large strains on their knees and had to drag their supplies behind them in winter sleds anyways. I propose crossing the kite buggy with a sled to make the kite sled and using that to beat their time. With bigger kites, it would also be possible to drag two people per sled at considerable speed and have them alternate sleeping and driving, thus minimizing stop time. I doubt I will ever be able to do such a trip myself, but I will defiantly take the opportunity if it is presented.

Beauty Function

2007-02-28T23:58:00.000-06:00

Three computer scientists from Tel Aviv University have developed a new tool for retouching images. If red-eye reduction was impressive, then this is stunning. The software, appropriately dubbed “Beauty Function”, takes an image of your face, calculates your current facial proportions and proposes a more optimal configuration, displaying the associated image. In effect, it makes you look more beautiful (about 79% of the time, according to the developers’ data). The developers provide some sample pictures that have been transformed. The pictures are probably the best results of the program, and some are not overly impressive, however it is a very good work for an automatic algorithm.

The definition of beauty and ratios associated with it were experimentally derived. The scientists surveyed 300 men and women, asking them to rank pictures’ on an attractiveness scale of 1-7. The scores were tabulated and linked to the ratios of various facial features (such as eye size, facial shape, etc). Around 250 measurement points were considered when developing the algorithm. In the end the scientists came up with a mathematical function to transform an input ratio measurement into a more optimal configuration. The result is an image with a more beautiful face than the original that carries the specific features of, and can be identified as, the original person.

The developers see the biggest application in commercial products such as Photoshop and digital camera software. They hope that this facial modification catches on like red-eye reduction and becomes a common function used by both amateur and professional photographers.

Is digital face modification justified?

The developers try to justify the use of facial modification by saying “if magazines do it, why can’t we?” On the one hand, that is an acceptable argument. On the other hand, we are taking a bad principal and expanding it to everyone. Its nice to see a slightly prettier Jennifer Lopez or Christina Aguilera on a magazine cover, but how far will it go? At first we modify images, then learn how to alter video, soon we will be demanding virtual reality goggles that make everyone look prettier. A grand concept, but I think we should leave that to bear.

More useful applications

In my opinion a more useful application for this sort of technology is facial recognition and indexing for image search. This technology already exists in some forms. I also think using the technology in plastic surgeons offices (as the designers’ suggest) is appropriate too. I doubt the tech (in this form) will catch on widely in mainstream digital camera. It will most likely end up as one of the countless features in Photoshop and hopefully GIMP will quickly follow with an open-source version.

The eye of the beholder

One of the developers, Cohen-Or, states: “Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is merely a function of mathematical distances and ratios”. Is this really true? I agree until a certain point. Just like the preferred 7:10 ratio that men seek in women, I believe there are certain ratios and lengths in the face that a human looks for. These ratios are present to reflect a healthy individual and for a person to better pick an optimal mate. In the optimal selection though, I think a lot depends on the beholder. I don’t mean in the cheese classical sense.

I believe there is a more scientific reason behind “they eye of the beholder.” For the sense of smell, some experiments have shown that humans have a preference for certain pheromone that best match an optimal genetic match. For kissing, some studies have show similar results, implying that a kiss “tastes” better from a more compatible genetic match. I think the same applies to faces. Your phenotype is defiantly expressed in your face (that’s why you look like your parents), so why wouldn’t you subconsciously evaluate a person phenotype or genotype when looking at them? This means there are formulas, but the formulas vary between different genotypes. Thus a perfect “Beauty Function” can not be created.

The overlap that many people share when searching for a healthy and compatible face can be modeled. This model can take us closer to beauty but such a process can never hope to reach true beauty. Once you get beyond a certain basic template the individual compatibility factors take over and the highest end of beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Conclusion

In the end I think this technology will mostly end up being used by dating and porn sites. Both need to quickly and cheaply modify mediocre picture. Hopefully the system will expand to more useful applications, such as good search.

Currently, the developers have not offered a version to play around. They promised a web-app version of the program since August 16^th, but as off yet it has not been delivered. The only things we have access to is the sample pictures and demo video.

On a personal note: Wow, I was interrupted by two fire alarms while typing this post. As far as I understand the cause was a fault in the system. Usually my residence gets hit by a block of 2 or 3 fire alarms in a night. There was a real (minor) fire earlier today on the 4^th floor (when I was in class), so hopefully this past fire alarm was the last of the night.

Yale

2007-02-28T18:26:00.000-06:00

Four days ago, I visited a friend of mine at Yale and got a chance to look around New Haven and campus. The University has a campus bigger than McGill’s; filled with beautiful, clean buildings and a rich history. At first it seems like an older, slightly cleaner version of McGill; then you learn that the University has an average class size that can be counted on one hand. If you look at the numbers, they are truly shocking.

McGill:

Faculty: 1,485

Students: 30,934

Campus: 80 acres (downtown)

Endowment: $760,000,000

Yale:

Faculty: 2,300

Students: 11,390

Campus: 260 acres (downtown)

Endowment: $20,000,000,000

In other words, McGill has 4 times more students per faculty member (21 compared to 5), ~31% of Yale’s land, and 3.8% of Yale’s endowment. I knew there was a big difference between public and private school, but I did not know it was so drastic. One of the best public universities receives 26 times less money than one of the best private universities. The only thing McGill can boast is beating out Yale this year for Sloan Fellowships by 4 to 3.

I enjoyed my trip to Yale. I came on a Saturday, so I did not socialize with many Yale students, but it was still nice to see my friend and find out how Yale was treating her. I don’t think I could ever fit in at a place like Yale. The vast amount of extra curricular activities the students are involved in overshadows their school work. I don’t think I would ever find activities other than attending school that I would be willing to dedicate so much time to. (I am also too lazy to be that dedicated and motivated).

Next on my list of school to visit is Harvard and MIT. I don’t have any friends attending those schools, but I think I still want to check them out (especially MIT).

In other news: I plan to finally update the structure of my blog a little, to reflect changing times.

iPhone

2007-01-10T18:03:00.000-06:00

A couple of years ago I was talking to Kumaran about what I thought the ultimate portable media player would be. I described an iPod with a full body touch screen that could be used to play music and watch videos. Apple has finally realized that vision (which I think many shared with me).

A little while ago Apple announced its iPhone. Not only does the gadget boast a full media player but also incorporates the function of a cell phone and PDA. The phone is expected to see US markets in June under Cingular and will be unveiled in Europe by the end of the year.

I am expecting the first model to have plenty of bugs. I suspect scratching and dirt to accumulate on the touch screen. Also, I bet the web/email features to be worse than PDAs. It will also fail as a cell phone, because I doubt the battery life will be any descent.

However, the important thing is Apple is getting into the cell phone market under its own name now, This means two things for us consumers. First we might see competitors try to bring more useful user-friendly handsets in hopes of beating Apple at their game. Second (after they realize option A is futile) I expect more and more companies to start creating lots of feature-free ultra-low-costs handsets (which means an expanded market as more and more 3^rd world countries become able to afford cell phones).

Components of University

2006-09-11T13:35:00.000-06:00

I have now settled down in Montreal, four Metro stops from downtown campus, in a place called Solin hall. Classes have started, and everything is going relatively smoothly so far. Attending McGill and talking to my various contacts in other Universities, as well as my new friends, has raised many questions as to the purpose of University and what makes University good or bad. After thinking for at least four minutes I have concluded that I have a basic answer to the components of University and their impact on the individual, also, I concluded in my usual “someone actually reads this blog” fashion to write it down.

Education

Education is the most obvious part of University, and probably the most important. Education is partially what you are taught, but more importantly; what you learn. In University, you learn everything from higher math, to philosophy, to how to cook and how to accept people radically different from you. The education does not differ between Universities of similar caliber. You can learn the same thing at UofS as you can at McMaster, McGill or something as impressive as Harvard or Stanford.

In my opinion, it is very important to move out during University to teach yourself life: it is hard to learn life skills living with your parents as an adult. It is important to get a job and start making money for yourself, as long as it does not hurt your dedication to school work. Last, it is very important to take as many courses as you can comfortably manage, to make the most out of your time at University.

Socialization

The people you know in university are your future trade contacts, business partners, husbands/wives and life long friends. Many of the most secure bonds of friendship are formed during your university career. This is when various schools start to distinguish themselves. The more famous, more expensive and harder to get into universities, attract a better connected, more determined, and usually more successful caliber of people. Being connected, determined and successful does not make them better friends or lovers, but it sure does make them better contacts and partners.

Of course, it is not all dependants on the university. Factors like city, your own choice of friends, previous contacts and social behavior affect who you meet at your school.

Reputation

This is the only factor that almost completely depends on the University you attend. Reputation is the ring that your University makes in potential employers or coworker’s ears. I have no clue how to evaluate a Universities reputation other than my own biased opinion or the generalized opinion of Macleans:

1^st – Waterloo

2^nd – Toronto

3^rd – McGill

4^th – UBC

6^th – McMaster

7^th – Queens

13^th – Saskatchewan

19^th – Ryerson

23^rd – Mount Allison

47^th – Nipissing

(source)

In the end, I think it is most important to go to a University where you can be in a constructive and productive atmosphere with lots of great people. If you want to learn life skills then move away from home and if you want to nurture your relationships with high school friends then stay in your hometown. If you want to learn how to work get a job and if you want to dedicate everything you have to school, then do so.

I decided to move away, and take as many courses as I can at McGill. I hope to move once more after I get my undergrad degree, just because I am used to moving. As for jobs, I have not decided yet, I am going to drop off a resume (when I get around to making it) with my landlord because it is very convenient to work for him on that boring stretch on Saturday and Sunday from noon to three instead of wasting my time with rants, expositions, MSN and facebook.

Goodbye High School

2006-06-25T21:35:00.000-06:00

Today I finished dismantling my life, and fitting it into little packages, ready to be shipped away. One bolt, one board, one relationship at a time I have turned everything I know into something that could be taken with me. Everyone I know has found a place in my heart (surprising, yes) and memories of them will live on inside of me for as long as I have the ability to reminisce. Some have taken a bigger spot, some have taken a smaller one, but there is room for everyone.

I still remember my first day of high school: grade 9, semester 2. Question: “Artem Kaznatcheev?” answer: “Here” followed by a wave of heads turning to see me. Yes, I was really a person, not just a cleric error that put a random name on five attendance sheets in semester one. I was a real person, and I was back from Russia. Back then I still had short hair and the naïve optimism of a self-centered Russian. After: I grew my hair, met some friends, fell in love, broke my heart and was at the end of my wits by grade eleven. The band I tried to form never got anywhere, since Lynden left Saskatoon, which is okay, since that leaves one less person I have to say goodbye to right now.

Sadly, I must say goodbye, as much as I hate to do it. There is no avoiding it; there is no procrastinating until it seizes to exist. I am an adult now, and I have to say goodbye. Some people will be closer than others in University (I’m looking at you Yunjun), some will be farther away. Still, I will remember everybody.

I have traveled all my life, leaving many behind, I have grown accustomed to inconsistence… change. Today is the first time that saying goodbye actually hurt. However, I am all packed and ready to go. I guess I will include two poems, because I feel like it, and I once thought they were good. (Posted in order of being written)

- - - - -

Grade 12

No matter how agog you objurgate

You’ll not silence the cheerful knell of times

But with mal spirit you can desecrate

The youth within as your adulthood chimes

Yet, you can’t abscond your obligation

To go from child to man and back again

For you’ll always need shards of your creation

As the effulgence of life begins to drain

And no matter how stoic your aberration

You will not find true meaning in your age

As your mind fumbles graduation

You’ll see both pain and joy in every page

The years engraved like marble silhouette

The question lingers: “Am I grown up, yet?”

Re-Thought

My thoughts are wandering. Like beggar’s feet

they take me to the slums. Like beggar’s hands,

past memories reproach until they meet,

rub close for warmth and reprimands.

Repent, regret, rebuff. My retrospect,

like beggar’s mind, it elevates me past

my proper place. But I cannot reject,

upon review, the thoughts my mind amassed.

My wits still follow me. Like beggar’s eye

they judge and plea. With time, like beggar’s word

they beckon me, to listen to them cry

about how past events will be recurred.

But just like beggars on the edge of light

my thoughts can be hidden out of sight

Congratulations, it’s a beautiful tomorrow

When I set foot inside these halls, gained entry

with my books, my hopes; protruding from in-

side the bag I bore since Elementary;

Back then I did not think that deep within

I brought my fears and not just all my grins.

A fear of life, a fear of death, some fears

of fear itself and of the deadly sins

that could devour me throughout four years

Now that I graduate, I know more ways

with which to paint the things I feared at dawn.

And still I bear that same old sack. A daze,

it’s empty: the books are gone, hopes moved on.

But all my fears were purged as well and in-

stead of them I’ll birth tomorrow without sin.

- - - - -

Goodbye to anyone I did not have a chance to say goodbye in person. Have a great summer everybody!

Conservative Canada

2006-01-24T23:04:00.000-06:00

Since the start of the Canadian election I have tried to avoid talking about politics. I wanted to sit back and watch the can of worms from a distance. Now the lid is gone and the little worms are crawling out and voicing the ideas of a conservative minority government. That is right, if you have lived in a cave for a while, Canada is now lead by the Conservative party. For those not familiar with Canadian politics, the Conservatives are Canada’s least left wing party. That, of course, is not saying much. If you want a comparison, the Canadian Conservatives are well left of the American Democrats.
I do not mind the Conservatives, but their leader, Steven Harper, is a pain. I am also disappointed in Paul Martin’s resignation from leadership of the Liberal party. I will comment more on all my views at a later time.

Book Review: Memoirs of a Geisha

2006-01-16T19:42:00.000-06:00

For those of you who know me well, know that I am not nearly as big on compliments as I am on insults. However, Arthur Golden’s book deserves to be presented with its praise first. “Memoirs of a Geisha” was a wonderful story of the life of a Japanese Geisha from the depression until post-World War Two. The book went into a lot of detail of a Geisha’s day to day life and the emotions the narrator, Sayuri, felt. I enjoyed her character development and the ways everything could twist around in the book but she still kept her eyes on the one thing that gave her hope. The crippled patron, Nobu, was another well depicted multi-dimensional character. Sayuri and Nobu seemed to me to be well planned and organized characters that touched on most aspects of human emotion. I was disappointed by three things in the book.

My first disappointed was that the book was nothing more than a love story. My second disappointment was how badly written some of the other characters where in comparison to Sayuri and Nobu. Mr. Golden did not seem to spend any time at all on Pumpkin or the Chairman, even though they were very import aspects of the story. My last problem with the novel is the happy ending. In the end everything turned out happy with no proper explanation at all. I was very disappointed by the ending of the book.
In the end, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden is worth reading. I wish the ending was better, but the imagery and language in the book makes it worth reading. I do not expect much from the movie based on this book and will not go out of my way to see it.

Google Video Store

2006-01-07T01:32:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Larry Page announced that a Google Video Store will be available soon. The announcement came at his key note speech in Las Vegas. The store will provide users with the option to by various shows permanently or rent them for a period of time for prices ranging from $0.99 to $3.95. Google continues its trend of angering all other technology companies by taking a step above Apple’s Video Store and offering REAL shows and more variety. The shows you purchase will be linked to your account and you will be able to watch them from any computer. The store is no big news to most Google Video users; it is just the completion of the “put a price on your video” option.
The immobility of the videos prompts me to speculate of a possible wireless device to be manufactured by Google or its partners to move the media to your television. The Google PC announcement never came at Mr. Page’s speech. In question time Larry Page denied that Google is working on a PC and saying they have partners for that. Instead of a Google PC, the Google Video Store and the Google Pack were announced to the public.
I am looking forward to the official unveiling of the Google Video Store. I will be sure to buy myself some old “I Love Lucy” episodes for 99 cents each.

Canada vs. Russia

2006-01-05T23:11:00.000-06:00

Today Russia lost 5 – 0 to Canada in the gold medal match at Junior Hockey World Cup. It is time like these that make me struggle with my identity. On the one hand I am a Russian patriot; on the other hand I enjoy Canada. I decided that I would be sad at the Russian defeat for two key reasons. The main reason is that I am Russian and I need to hold onto my Russian pride. The second reason is that most people will be happy that Canada won, and I want to be a thorn in their side.
Picking between Russia and Canada is one of the hardest choices for me when it comes to allegiance. I mean picking between something like Russia and Ukraine, or Canada and U.S.A is a no brainer. In the resent Gasprom affair between Russia, Ukraine and Europe, I was quick to side with my motherland. I found myself ridiculing a Ukrainian on the radio who spoke for the Ukrainian side of the issue, because his points were absurd. I was also deeply disappointed when the EU did not give Russia or Gasprom any support against the thieving Ukrainian government. Ukraine spoke like we were raising prices unjustly, while we were just trying to bring them to the market standard instead of selling gas for ¼ of its price to those orange revolutionaries.
In the end, hockey is not a big part of my life. From a purely sport view, I have no allegiance to either team. The only thing binding me to the Russian team is national pride. What really matters is that the Finns beat the Americans and kicked them off the podium.

Book Review: The Da Vinci Code

2006-01-04T23:59:00.000-06:00

My affair with the Da Vinci Code started when I learn it was voted as the number one book of all time in some rather big internet survey. I knew that the book was not that good, since I saw many other pop novels above classics on that list, but my curiosity was stirred. A couple of weeks ago I finally picked up the copy of Dan Brown’s book that was laying around my house from when my mother left it there to collect dust. After reading the first twenty pages I was astonished. Now please do not misinterpret my astonishment as some sort of praise, for I was astonished at just how bad this book was. I found Mr. Brown’s writing style atrocious and could not bear to read any more of the book. I discussed the novel in a phone conversation with my mother and she reinvigorated by her comments that the book was an entertaining read.

I took her word for it and got back to reading the book. I finally finished it a little while ago while coming back from my ski trip. I have to say, the book did not cease to amaze me as I read through it. Once again, I am not trying to compliment; it was defiantly not the story twists that were amazing me. I was astonished at the fact that a book that was this badly written, with such badly developed characters, actually got popular.
After thinking about the book and the author for a while, I came to the conclusion that Mr. Brown was not an idiot, but in fact a genius. He has made a book that is bland in its wording so any American can read it and filled with cheap page-turning tactics. He added the sacrilege to it to gain the attention of readers, and made a bestseller.
I have nothing positive to say about the book, and very few general comments on it. The ending in particular left unimpressed with Dan Brown’s writing abilities. I do not recommend this book to who enjoys a well written peace and I have no hopes for the movie. This book might make a good beach mystery, but that it is all that it deserves. I am ashamed to see that it was voted the best book of all time.

Google PC

2006-01-03T18:35:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the long absence of posts, everyone. I have recently been lazy, playing Fallout Tactics and leaving for skiing. However, I am going to try to get back into the swing of things after not posting for around a month. I have three topics I want to post on, and that should make for three days straight of posts. Hopefully I will have more ideas by the end of those three days. Maybe I will even decide that eventually I will have to post about the Canadian elections. For now, I will avoid politics and Canada for that matter and talk about Google.

Introduction
On Friday, many are expecting Google to unveil a barebones PC running a Google OS or some device of the sort. The no-frills PC is expected to be unveiled this Friday by Larry Page during his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The computer is expected to follow many ideas of the Mac Mini in making itself small and cost-effective. Since the speculated PC would not use Windows or other Microsoft products, it can cost under $200.
The biggest shock of the mainstream speculation about Friday’s announcement is Google’s partnership with Wal-Mart. Google enthusiasts speculate that Google will work with Wal-Mart in getting the hardware to the user. I find the news particularly interesting because only a short while ago, Wal-Mart was said to be finding ways to work against Google, because they were afraid the search engine could divert people form their stores.
Google has not confirmed any of the rumors, simply stating that “we do not comment on rumor and speculation”.

The Computer
I find the Google PC as an interesting way to introduce Google and Google OS to the shopper. However, I am not as optimistic as many speculators on such a drastic release. I am not sure if Google wants to throw itself into the world of low profit margin PCs. Through Google OS they would be able to propagate their adds, search engine and other software, but to who? Most people who would buy up these PCs are most likely Google users already. If Google is unveiling some sort of consumer hardware then I think it is more likely to be of the mobile sort. A device to harness the power of the Wi-Fi network Google has started to build. Google has recently been cooperating with Opera, a web browser company. Opera, on their part, has been working on Opera Mini, a browser made for low end Java-enabled mobile devices. I understand a Google device would most likely not need Opera Mini, but what Opera is doing shows interest towards mobile communication and I believe Google shares that interest.
Personally, I do not think Google is ready to leap into the consumer PC market right now. I think what Google needs to unveil first is a server PC. A cheap PC, running a server version of Google OS that is tailor made to work well with the Google Network. The Server PC would be a way for companies to have cheap servers that are easier to access by anyone using Google search. After setting their groundwork in Google servers, Google could expand out to making computers for the general public and creating that Google sub-internet I dreamed about not only through software but with their own hardware to back it all up.

The Alliance
The possible cooperation with Wal-Mart seemed foolish to me at first but after a bit more thought I realized that it is ingenious. If Wal-Mart is afraid of Google and thinking of measures to work against them, then why not subdue Wal-Mart and not have a threat to worry about? Working with Wal-Mart would be the best way for Google to reduce hostility from the giant. With Google and Wal-Mart cooperating together, the people at Wal-Mart would have much less reason to hatch ideas on combating against Google.
Even with that justification, the deal still seems strange to me.

Conclusion
For now all the Google PC information is not true information, but mere speculation. Google is a rather secretive company, and I guess we will not know what they are unveiling until the speech on Friday. I will keep looking into the matter and post more on the matter if anything materializes in Larry Page’s address.

Authoritarian Russia

2005-11-24T21:24:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the recent lack of updates. I have been busy with a lot of work, but now I am starting to see free time again. While I was busy I made a rocketry site for physics, if you want to check it out.

Introduction
Russia has often been blamed for not following its democratic ideals. Most of this blame has come from the United States and other western powers. Inside the Russian Federation there is marginal public opposition, but marginal is as far as it goes. President Putin has around 80% of his nation’s votes and is leading a government that is very appealing to the average Russian citizen. However, to insure effective development, crack down on corruption and provide a peaceful atmosphere, Putin has had to forfeit the rights of some. His government has been known for targeting anti-governmental broadcasting agencies and non-cooperating business men. This sort of activity has been looked down upon by the west, but has been found acceptable by the majority of Russian people.
The legislation voted on by the lower house of Russian Parliament was concerning foreign and domestic NGOs. NGOs or nongovernmental organizations are organizations that promote governmental activity without being affiliated with any one given government (example: Green Pace, Amnesty International). The bill received preliminary approval with a vote of 370 to 18 and needs to be voted on two more times before being passed onto the upper parliament and Putin. Today, to the surprise of some, Putin voiced approval for the bill, although he mentioned the need for some amendments. The bill is expected to be fast tracked into law and the secondary vote is scheduled for December 9th.

NGOs are a threat?
Money laundering is the main worldwide threat from NGOs. NGOs are used as a way to launder money for terrorism and related activates. Sadly, Russia is plagued by terrorist activities, mostly in the Chechnya and Georgian border regions. To combat the threat from terrorism Russia is planning to introduce this legislation to take decisive action against money laundering. Russia is facing the problem in a more blatant way then the Patriot Act and Anti-terrorism Act dealt with it in United States and Canada. Of course, in comparison the new legislation from Russia is much less restrictive then those two Acts, but the Russian legislation (unlike the Acts) is not an all-in-one anti-terrorism legislation.
The secondary threat is local and is the threat of unwanted governmental change. In 2004 the United States donated $45 million to funding NGOs in Russia that promoted democracy. These are the sort of activities that caused the ‘revolution’ in Ukraine and all the unrest associated with it. Russia wants to protect herself from needless change and espionage.

Effects
The proposed bill will ban all foreign NGOs in Russia. It will also closely monitor domestic NGOs. One of the things that will be disallowed for domestic NGOs, will be out-of-country funding.

Conclusion
When all is said and done, I agree with this legislation. Russia is in shatters and the only way we can get back up is with a strong leader. Putin is that strong leader and if this legislation helps him stay in power and make Russia better, then so be it. Russia can not afford to have Putin replaced by some ‘democratic’ numbskull that will drag our country into non-existance.

Microsoft's Lack of Innovation

2005-11-09T23:05:00.000-06:00

Today an internal memo from Ray Ozzie and email from Bill Gates have leaked onto the internet. The two pieces of information outline Microsoft’s direction for the next 5 years:
It is now 2005, and the environment has changed yet again – this time around services. Computing and communications technologies have dramatically and progressively improved to enable the viability of a services-based model. The ubiquity of broadband and wireless networking has changed the nature of how people interact, and they’re increasingly drawn toward the simplicity of services and service-enabled software that ‘just works’. Businesses are increasingly considering what services-based economics of scale might do to help them reduce infrastructure costs or deploy solutions as-needed and on subscription basis.

The email and memo both make references to Google and many have jumped on the bandwagon of looking at this as a source of explanation for Google-Microsoft relations. I will not concentrate on this, because that is not the most important part of the memo. The most important part is that, once again, Microsoft has no clue what the next jump is. They have jumped onto the existing bandwagon internet services without realizing where the future markets are opening up. Surely, the next year or so will be a hot bed for standard internet services. However, Microsoft has completely missed the next big market.
In the next 5 tears developing nations will become a huge market. Cell phone companies are already realizing the profits that can be made in 3rd world and technologically un-advanced countries through cell phone distribution. Obviously, where cell phones go, computers will follow. India has been a good case of capitalizing on a developing nations need for computer infrastructure, but Microsoft has overlooked their Indian lesson.
Since 1995, inexpensive computing and communications technologies have advanced at a rapid rate that even exceeded our expectations. It’s so very difficult now for us to imagine a world without the PC, the web and the cell phone. In the US, there are more than 100MM broadband users, 190MM mobile phone subscribers, and WiFi networks blanket the urban landscape. This pattern is mirrored in much of the developed world. Computing has become linked to the communications network; when a PC is purchased, it’s assumed that the PC will have high-speed internet connectivity.

Microsoft is intent on being a caterer to the developed world and do not realize how they made their money in the first place. Microsoft became the company that it is by getting in and releasing something when the computer industry was being born. Now that industry is being born in developing countries, and Microsoft is overlooking it. They are continuing to follow what they’ve done before with the GUI interface, internet exposure and more recently, consoles. Microsoft is once again jumping on the bandwagon and hopping that it will get by on its pure brute money.
The biggest market becoming available to the computer world is China. Unlike Google, Microsoft has no prominent Chinese (or Asian) division. In the Microsoft memo, Ray Ozzie states:
Just as in the past, we must reflect upon what’s going on around us, and reflect upon our strengths, weaknesses and industry leadership responsibilities, and respond. As much as ever, it’s clear that if we fail to do so, our business as we know it is at risk. We must respond quickly and decisively.

Yet the company is blind to the development of new markets which it can (for a lack of a better word) exploit. Microsoft is very much at risk if it continues on this trend of bandwagon jumping and lack of innovation.
Microsoft’s number one competitor, Google, has a much better of the emerging market. To take us back to my long standing Google OS debate, if Google releases an OS for free and makes it appealing to the emerging Chinese market (as well as other developing markets) Google can easily rip Microsoft’s dominance from it. Before today’s memo leak, there was still debate about Microsoft’s opportunity in the service market but now it is already that Microsoft will not pull itself up to become a leader in online services or the new business model introduced by Google. To make matters worse, Microsoft is now running of losing even its shrink wrapped products in its failure to recognize the coming markets. Microsoft has exposed itself to competitors like Google and now their fate as an industry leader is in the hands of those companies.

Broke and Happy vs. Rich... and Happier?

2005-11-08T23:19:00.000-06:00

Being broke is both a gift and a curse. Well, I guess it’s mostly a curse. Today I had a chance to experience first hand the curse of being broke. I stopped by the corner store after school. There I was, gathering some food, making my way to pay. I whipped out my bank card with confidence of that I was paid recently and therefore I have money. After 3 tries, I realized that I am still as broke as a hobo. I spent all my money in early October buying a present for a friend, and still my bank account is empty.
Originally the gift was going to be expensive for me, but not nearly as much as it turned out. I organized a big gathering with a whole bunch of people and I took pledges from them and they would give me the money later… not too great of a plan. Today I am still broke and a whole lot of people still owe me money. I can not really go and demand my money for to big reasons: it is not nice and I did not write down the names of the few people that paid me. My friends parents offered to cover any expenses that were too great from the gift, but that just is unacceptable. When you make a gift, you make a gift to the whole family and you can not have them pay for parts of their own gift. Hence, I will just have to burden the debt and hopefully 50 cents will get me by.
Normally I would not have a problem with being broke, but my dad is gone until the 14th. I will be out of food tomorrow: that means I need to survive for 5 days on 50 cents.
This raises a question: does money bring happiness? I am broke, and very happy that I gave my friend a good gift. However, I am also going to be hungry for the next 5 days and when I am hungry I am not happy. Also, if you think about it, its money that got the gift and money that made happiness in the first place.
I believe “money does not bring happiness” is a novel idea, but a misleading one. It implies that you can be broke and happy and I think that is very hard in the sort of society we live in. That being said, it does not mean that everyone should just clench their money. I have several friends who have lofty bank accounts to their name and they have no clue what do with them. Still they are scrawny in their spending and very conservative about their money. It might be the remains of my communist roots speaking, but I think that money hording is just wrong. I would understand if that was the basis of Capitalism and thus important to society. But money hording has no place in Capitalism. In Capitalism you float your capital value into all sort of investments, that is how net worth is made.
I do not understand the money horders, and I think I never will. I guess this new discovery has a big effect on the “Got to Love Your Work?” debate. The wind has now changed in favor of making money and then finding happiness. Hopefully, I will be able to make some sort of proper and meditated decisions and I hope that my lack of understanding when it comes to money horders will not damage my adulthood.

Rotting Our Analytical Minds

2005-11-07T23:17:00.000-06:00

Over this past weekend, I downloaded a couple of the Visual Studio 2005 Betas from Microsoft. I am trying to diversify my vocabulary, language base and thought processes in programming. I decided to finish learning C++ and learn J# so I downloaded those two, as well as the Web development tool. I have looked briefly into Visual C++ and J#, but started of mostly in Web development, working on the browser based Wevonger program to work along the same lines as the Delphi written Devonger I have been working on recently. The experience of working in 3 different languages simultaneously opened me up to a lot of thought and arguments in which is better. I work in two radically different assisted languages: Pascal in Delphi and JavaScript/HTML/CSS in Web Development. On the side, for my blog work I work in pure untouched code. The three different programming experiences have really raised questions on which are the most effective.
In assisted languages I can make much more complex programs, much faster. In pure Code I am much more efficient from a resources point of view, as well as the integrity and full knowledge of my code. I came across similar dilemmas when I was experimenting with command line Python, but I only used Python for relatively useless things before looking into GUI interfaces (assistance). In the end I can not come to a good decision over which is more effective. I think it is essential for a program to know both and be adaptable. I think a programmer is marker by his skill of thinking in different ways and his ability to learn quickly, and not his knowledge of syntax. Even with my native tongue of Delphi I still frequent the F1 (help) key, because I see memorization of syntax as useless.
In my quest to enlighten myself on which sort of programming was more appropriate (and to avoid actual work) I scoured the World Wide Web. I soon came across an article with a hopeful title by Chrarles Petzold. I quickly turned to the man with 30 years of coding and programming for advice. After attentively reading the 20 page article and laughing at all the little jokes, only a man who spent 30 years coding could write, I started to form a better opinion of proper programming. Petzold had specialized in Windows Forms and C programming. Now he was over to C# and new his Pascal and C++, but his mother tongue was different from mine. However, I was able to understand his words and feel the feeling that tore him apart. I was able to understand and synthesized with the uncertainty of which was better: human code or computer assisted code. In the end both of us came to few conclusions. The only thing that was really established for me was the true addictiveness of the shortcuts computer assistance gives us.
I recalled the days when I had to make a second form for the first time. Before then Delphi always manufactured my first form for me and when I had to create another one from scratch I was stuck scratching my noggin. In about five minutes I had the code down, but the main thing was that hesitation at first and the lack of proper education in form creation. I realized that having Delphi create my form was bad for my programming mind, and yet I would never get rid of it.
As Petzold wrote in his article, “Does Visual Studio Rot the Mind”:
It is very common for us to say about a piece of consumer technology that “we didn’t know how much we needed it until we had it,” and much of this technology seems targeted not to satisfy a particular need, but to get us hooked on something else we never knew we needed; not to make our lives better, but to tempt us with another designer drug. “I can’t live without my ___________” and you can fill in the blank. This week, I think, it’s the video iPod.

Technology has become a drug that we get hooked on and can never get off. Not only does this apply to IntelliSense in Visual Studio, or auto complete in Delphi and the VS predecessors. The curse of technological addiction also applies to non programmer applications, like MSN, WinAmp…. Spell check. The first two are constantly running on my computer and I do not know what I would do without them. I can not imagine going through hundreds of CDs or records in my player or even listening to the same artist twice in a row. My phone usage is a bare minimum that only sees itself used when someone’s internet goes down, when my computer illiterate mother calls, or when I am just too confused to type. My spelling is probably on the level of a grade school child from around a century ago, because I can always just click F7 and have all the spelling mistakes in this post fixed automatically.
Technology has become both a dream and a curse for not only programmers, but all of its users. Soon we will be hovering around our school hallways saying emotionless ‘lol’s to each other.

Mortality

2005-11-06T21:11:00.000-06:00

Mortality is the concept that everyone has to die sometime. We spend our lives dreading and avoiding the topic. We are always immortal until proven otherwise and many never want to be proven wrong. In the end, (if you’re not religious or superstitious) you never will know if you are mortal or not. The only way for us to realize our own mortality is to lose someone we know and love. Today, I realized I am mortal.
Around 3 o’clock my grandmother called, to tell me that my great grandmother has died. It was not a surprising death per say, but it was still shocking. Even when someone is just shy of a century, you still think they will always be around. My great grandmother lived a simple life in a small Russian town. She grew most of her own food; her bread came from one set of neighbors, milk from another. Her son was always close by, living in the same house as her. I did not have particularly close ties to her and in my last visit she could not even distinguish me from my father due to failing health. I can not say I was a particularly wonderful great grandson, having only paid her visits a handful of times in my life. However, I still remember her, I remember her house, I remember how I build little dams on the stream nearby and I remember how we hiked through the woods. I am afraid that those memories will be lost one day, but until then I will cherish them. My great grandmother was a religious woman, and I hope heaven treats her well. Maybe she can see down and see the kind of lives we made for ourselves. I wonder if she would approve of what we have become.
This loss is a first for me in many ways. I have only lost two people to death in my life before today. One was my grandfather and the other was a family friend. My grandfather died from a heart attack before I can remember. Our family friend died on a trip mine after landing a relief plane in some third world country; maybe that’s why I have never been a big fan of “make poverty history” and such aid campaigns. My great grandmother, though, is the first person I knew well and can actually remember, that died. To me this comes as a loss, but not nearly as much of one as it will be to others.
I am worried about my grandmother, aunt and dad. My grandmother was the one that called me and told me the news. She sounded alright, but you could hear sadness deep in her voice. It was the sort of sadness you would expect after someone comes to terms with the loss of their primary caregiver. My great grandfather died in World War II and therefore my grandmother was raised primarily by her mom. I emailed my father with the news in hopes that he would call grandma and talk to her. I understand email is not the best form of communication, but he is in California right now and it was my only way to reach him. My aunt is with my grandma in Novosibirsk right now and hopefully they can handle the events together as a family.
My relatives are probably coping and planning a funeral as you read this. I will not be able to attend the funeral due to expired papers, but I hope it is a nice funeral. I think it would be wonderful if my dad could attend, maybe he can get a plane ticket and fly over after he returns from the States.
For now, I am still in Saskatoon, but now with a better sense of my mortality.

Why We Hate IE6 Part 2

2005-11-06T15:03:00.000-06:00

As Anonymous posted under “Why We Hate IE6”:
Screw IE altogether!
The world's crappriest browser.

I did not believe that at first, but earlier today more bugs came from internet explorer. My blog no longer shows up with IE at all. I will fix the problem as soon as I can. On Macs (when running IE) the blog still shows up but with formatting problems in the right sidebar. I think the errors are from the new Google Maps feature I added, and I will make the feature invisible for IE users as soon as I can.

To make matter worse, my great grandmother died today. This of course is not related to IE at all (or so I hope), but I only found out moments ago as I was writing this post. I hope she is given a nice funeral, I wish I could attend, but my papers are expired and I would not be granted entrance into my mother country.

Microsoft Live Battalion

2005-11-04T21:45:00.000-06:00

Introduction
I have been avoiding discussing Microsoft Live for as long as possible, but today I will have to start. Bill Gates has launched Microsoft into the “Live era” as the company likes to say. The company has finally gotten around to copying some established products and establishing its own front in the war between Google, Yahoo and other internet giants. Some experts believe that Microsoft will not get anywhere with its efforts:

And while Microsoft has talked about accelerating its business by offering services, some analysts worry that its race to compete with Google and others could leave Microsoft’s very profitable business model in the dust. (source)

I am however not as optimistic and I am very much afraid that if a behemoth like Microsoft is given a chance to rear its ugly head, the fate of other companies might be very grim.

While the "live" software push is seen mainly as an effort to compete with rivals such as Google and Yahoo, there are a number of smaller companies that suddenly find themselves in Redmond’s competitive crosshairs. (source)

The unveiling of Microsoft’s Live software brings up three major questions: possible damage to Google, possible damage to Microsoft and possible damage to third parties. An internet war is starting to take shape between the giants of the web and the giants of software. Everyone has their own agenda and much collateral damage will be taken among third parties. Hopefully the conflict makes the web a better place for the users and is not destructive. But as we know from experience, wars rarely leave their battle zones unscarred.

In the past several months, some insiders and former employees have said that Microsoft has become too bureaucratic and process-driven to compete with nimbler competitors such as Google. (source)

To get ready for the competition Microsoft has reorganized itself to streamline decision making. The company has been split into three independent branches that answer to Steve Ballmer, the company’s CEO. In my mind this is Microsoft’s mobilization for the oncoming wars. In the words of an insider email sent to Microsoft employees by Steve Ballmer:
Our goal in making these changes is to enable Microsoft to achieve greater agility in managing the incredible growth ahead and executing our software-based services strategy

Possible Damage to Google
For Google the damage comes from direct clash. Windows Live Mail Beta is very much like GMail Beta. Both services are providing around 2GB of storage with similar interfaces and a Java based programming (so you don’t have to wait for every site to load). For Google the treat comes from that Microsoft has a whole lot more people in its Hotmail accounts that Google has in their GMail accounts. For now Google has been able to win over users from Hotmail but mounting competition may stop that trend. Google is already being challenged by increases from Yahoo and providers such as 30Gigs.
Google might carry a good brand name and be very popular with users that spend a good chunk of their lives on the internet and around computers. For the average user though, Microsoft is a better known and more trustable name for software. Over 37% of people might know Google’s great search engine, but Google software’s user base is much smaller. Services such as Blogger are in a fit to compete with “convenience” providers like MSN My Space. Google has a jump start on Microsoft and its worth is soaring, but Microsoft has a lot of weight to throw around. Google has to now play keep-away from Microsoft and try to knock the competitor down from their feet before they get started.

Possible Damage to Microsoft

Analysts say the move is probably necessary to help the company compete with rivals that threaten to offer online equivalents to some of Microsoft's cash cows, like Office. However, depending on how far Microsoft takes the strategy, it could also put the company in competition with its existing--and already lucrative--way of doing business.(source)

The biggest damage to Microsoft is the mishmash between its current model and the model needed to succeed in the internet market. Microsoft has been fueled by high-volume, high-margin software. The web business model requires the company to be fueled by low-margin advertising. Sadly (or maybe Happily), Microsoft can not provide its software at the same rate and make effective internet products. Making advertisement fueled products is bound to cannibalize Microsoft from the inside.

Bittman thinks Microsoft could eventually outflank Google but, ironically, find itself worse off. "I think Microsoft can win, but in the end it means Microsoft loses, unless there is some other magic there we don't see." (source)

Possible Damage to Third Parties
Microsoft’s offers of free calling, free virus scanning and free contact management are putting some companies in a jam. Most small companies are downplaying the risk and saying that Microsoft will never catch up to them. However, everyone knows the speed of Microsoft from experience. Google has no need to stop Microsoft in some of its markets and neither do any other big companies. VoIP providers might get some “help” from Google if it tries to stop Microsoft’s moves into VoIP communication, but Google Talk is not proficient enough as of yet to battle it out with MSN. On the security front, there are some big companies like MacAfee and Symantec to hold their ground against Microsoft, but the have enough quarrels between each other as is. Some markets though, (like the contacts market) have no big companies in place and are Microsoft’s for the taking. I think the companies in those fields are watching a very fine line by downplaying the importance of Microsoft’s infringement into their markets. For their sake, I hope the downplay is on a public one and not present inside the companies.

Conclusion
As of now, the future of Microsoft and Google is still too far away to predict. Google has the agility behind it, but Microsoft is trying to become more agile, again. Google has a wonderful capital value, but Microsoft’s capital value can not be compared to. I think that Google and Microsoft are very much on par right now in the internet software market. Google has a lead and better agility but Microsoft has a lot more money and is know to be quick to catch up. The best strategy for Google I think is to try to undermine Microsoft by cutting off the company’s shrink wrapped, high-margin OS and Office sales. Google has already taken a step forward by allying with Sun Microsystems, but Microsoft is trying to counter that with Office Live. The trick left in Google’s sleeve (if they want to undermine Microsoft) is to release a Google OS. I can not predict exactly what the two internet giants will do and will be watching their activities closely.

Dynamic Keyboard

2005-11-02T21:38:00.000-06:00

Introduction
Art Lebedev, a Russian design firm, has recently created a concept keyboard intent on changing the way we type. No, it’s not super ergonomically correct or specially designed for your figures. From first glance it just looks like your average everyday keyboard with an extra mini-keypad on the left.

On closure examination, they keyboard reveals its true secrets. Each key has an OLED covering which can change dynamically. The development is obvious, yet genius. Imagine a keyboard that can change its keys depending on what program you are using, or what language you are in. The “Optimus Keyboard” plans to make that dream become reality.

OLED?
That’s right: organic light-emitting diodes. The technology has been in development for sometime and is expected to replace standard LEDs and LCDs in due time. The technology behind the OLEDs is more than I want to go into, but it isi basically a thin strip of material that can emit light and does so with little power requisites because it is an organic compound at the core of the “fabric” or screen that emits the light. The biggest problem with the OLEDs is that they have a certain shelf-life because they are organic. The red and green have been made to work for 20,000 hours, but there are still troubles with the blue OLEDs. Kodak does allege to have made blue OLEDs with a life of 100,000 hours, but such are not easy accessible as of now.
The biggest advantage organic LEDs have over standard LEDs, LCDs and projection screens is that they do not need a backlight and thus are much more energy efficient. Also, the OLEDs can be made more flexible and thinner than other materials. The technology is not in complete infancy, and although I have not come across any spectacular commercial products that already harness the OLED technology many prototype products have been made. The Samsung TV seen above is an 40 inch OLED prototype from the company.
The new technology has a lot of potential and is a good tool to look into for developers.

Language Variations
With the new keyboard from Artemy Lebedev we will be able to switch quickly between different languages. If you are a person that is fluent (or needs to type) in more than one language then this would be a very effective tool for you. The different keyboard settings come in useful if your languages have a different alphabet (like Russian and English).
The ability to easily switch languages would not only be convineint but make a wonderful culture preservative. Now people from different cultures will not have to make up ways to write their tongue with English script, just because they do not remember the layout of their native keyboard.

Application Variations
Since the OLEDs are dynamic and quick to respond, the buttons on your keyboard could change from application to application and inside an application. The examples on the right show the layout for Photoshop and Quake. Such a dynamically changing tool would allow computer game developers some new creative grounds and would make gaming and application shortcuts somewhat more natural. You could click the control key and suddenly “s” would change into a little save disk and “c” into a pair of scissors. If you hit the windows key the letter “l” would now read “switch users”. I think such a tool would be a very good tool for making applications, operating systems and games more intuitive.

When it is all said and done
The keyboard is said to release in 2006, but I believe that is a very optimistic date of release. The company might manage to make an LED or LCD version of their keyboard, but a full OLED keyboard might be hard. The developing company claims:

It’s in the initial stage of production.
We hope it will be released in 2006.
It will cost less than a good mobile phone.
It will be real.
It will be OS-independent (at least it’s going to be able to work in some default state with any OS).
It will support any language or layout.

As of now, the patent is still pending on the keyboard and it is still in “initial stages of production.” I am afraid we will not see the keyboard come out in 2006, but the idea is out of the closet and I am sure we can see something like this tool on the market in the near future.
The biggest problem with the Optimus keyboard is if we really need it. The keyboard might just be too little too late. The market is moving towards smaller and smaller keyboards and searching for other input devices. I am afraid the new dynamically changing keyboard will not see the same sort of fame our current keyboard sees.

Conclusion
The idea might be an obvious one, the technology might not be complete and the company might not make the best mass producer. The main point of this product, however, is that it exists. The word is out there and hopefully one day we will see a dynamically changing keyboard.

Gomery's First Report

2005-11-01T22:14:00.000-06:00

Today, the first report of the Gomery Inquiry was released. The inquiry overseen by Justice Gomery was commissioned to look into the alleged sponsorship scandal. The sponsorship scandal erupted from allegations that the Liberal government under John Chrétien was involved in under-the-table dealing in Quebec. Gomery decided that there is no clear evidence to point to Chrétien’s knowledge of the money transfers; however, Chrétien was found politically responsible for the bigger issue. Gomery found Chrétien responsible for the waste of millions of taxpayer dollars in promoting federalism and the liberal party in Quebec. The current Liberal Prime Minister, Paul Martin, was absolved of any misconduct. The biggest blows of the report came to John Chrétien, Alfonso Gagliano, and Jacques Corriveau. The latter two were given a permanent ban from the Liberal party of Canada.
The commission might not be placing blame on Paul Martin, but the Liberals are in jeopardy as is federalism in general. The scandal has reignited the flames of separation burning in the PQ and Bloc Quebecois. I am afraid the separatist might once again push for an independent Quebec. The inquiry will also put the Liberals (who are already clinging desperately to a minority government) out of power. The Conservatives will most likely win the next election and the Liberal party just has to hope it can cling to as many seats as possible so that they (with the help of the NDP) can tackle down the government.
The minority governments and scandals are making Canadian politics much more exciting and I am looking forward to the next months. Paul Martin is not going to call an election until the second report and if he plays his cards right with the NDP, he will stay in power until April (or later) of next year.
After the conservatives take a minority government I think the atmosphere will become very interesting. There will be a three way split in parliament between the Conservative government, the Liberal and NDP opposition and the Bloc Quebecois. The biggest turn of events will be that the Liberals will be able to hold more voting power as the opposition, since now it will be them and NDP against Conservatives and not the two of them against conservatives and the Bloc.
I will continue to loosely follow the reports in the near future and see where the scandal is taking Canada. I will update more if anything exciting happens.

Trick or Treat 'till You Drop!

2005-10-31T22:09:00.000-06:00

Is there really an age when you have to stop trick or treating? Today, two other grade 12 students and I went to find out. Dave, Yunjun and I were not turned down even once. Now, do not get me wrong… we defiantly did not look like little kids. Dave is a pretty big guy and you could see his beard through his make up. Yunjun is rather tall for a Chinese boy and was not dressed up at all. I was wearing my leather jacket and even though I am on the skinny side, I am not short. We only had time to do about two dozen houses (and even that is an optimistic estimate), but not even one turned us down. Yunjun and Dave came out with a good amount of candy. Several times through our escapade discussion of doing this in University came up. Hence, to repeat myself: “is there really an age when you have to stop trick or treating?”

Got to Love Your Work?

2005-10-28T22:22:00.000-06:00

Introduction
Millions of people across Canada, U.S and the rest of the world, go to work everyday, dreading what they do. Many of these people have no choices as to what they can do for employment and need whatever job they can get to support themselves and their families. On the flip side, some individuals had all the choices in the world and are capable of getting many different jobs, but still work somewhere they hate. They do things they do not like for money, but as Mrs. Davis, my English teacher said: “it’d have to be an awfully large sum of money to make me do something I didn’t enjoy.” The question before me today: “should an individual do what they are better at, or what they enjoy more.”

Background
I am one of those individuals that had, through out their life, hundreds of wonderful opportunities. I am relatively successful in school and come from a well off family. The chances of me being unemployed, on the street, and begging for food (out of necessity) are very low. When I grow up there will be a lot of jobs that can sustain me and many that I can prosper from. The big challenge for me is deciding if I should pursue what I think (on average) will give me more enjoyment, what I am better at, or what my parents want me to be.
What I enjoy and what I am good at are often diametrically opposed. I enjoy poetry and political science and many other humanities. I am good at Physics, Math, and Computer Science. I do enjoy physics, math, and computer science, of course, but I do not believe that I will enjoy them as careers. On the other hand I would enjoy things relating to political science much more, but my skill in them is significantly less. The third factor is what my parents want me to be, and what they were before. My mother wants me to be a doctor, so that I can take over her practice when she decides to retire. My father has a duel PHD in Mathematics and Physics and if I enter the science field I will always live in his shadow.

Better At
Doing something you are good at, gives you more chances to succeed in the field. Personally, I enjoy all the little glimpses of success I see. Being more successful also means more influence and more money. With more influence you can make a bigger difference in more lives, and thus make your life, and the lives of others, more meaningful. An increase in money means you can set up your family better and leave them more when you die. Usually money also brings more travel and easier access to different hobbies.

Enjoy More
An enjoyable job means you can put more effort into it. More effort could lead to more success and money just like a job you are good at, but it is less likely. On the bright side, if you really enjoy your job, then you will not need finances for hobbies. You job will become your hobby. A better and more enjoyable atmosphere at work makes for a happier person. That same happiness can be passed onto other people, thus benefiting your family. Influence can be gained because you would have more interest in socialization in your workplace. Workplace socialization, just like more effort, might give the same results as a job you are good at, but it is less likely.

Conclusion
The best option is having a job you are both good at and enjoy. That is not always possible though. In the cases when you can not have both joy and goodness in your career, you must take a risk and decide which way to go. In the end it is really a debate on if money can buy happiness. If money can buy happiness, then do what you are good at. If money can not buy happiness (as many allege), then get a job that you will enjoy.

Why We Hate IE6

2005-10-27T23:12:00.000-06:00

Another small post because as the reader can see, I have been remodeling my blog lately (and that took away writing time). I have been making the posts resize to fit your screen. I know it might look kind of bad right now, but I will be adding another sidebar on the left with navigation and things will look better. Expect more improvements soon.
Unless of course… you are running IE! Gah! I tested my new CSS style on Mozilla Firefox and it was flawless. Oliver then checked it on his Mac with Safari and it was flawless, too. However, when you run IE on the Mac, the sidebar becomes superimposed over the post text. If you are running IE6 on Windows then the sidebar is just gone. Just freaking gone!
I am very much angered by IE’s incompatibility with all other browsers. In due time I will fix up the errors happening with IE, but for now all the IE users will have to put up with no sidebar. Sorry.
I cannot wait until IE7 is released along with Vista. Hopefully version 7 will be at least half-decent.

Not Growing Up

2005-10-26T22:01:00.000-06:00

Today, I was talking to my mom on the phone. She kept going on about how I will have to leave Saskatoon as soon as grade 12 is over, and that I need to grow up and be a man. I always wanted to grow up and be an adult when I was a kid, but now that I am here at the borderline... I really do not know if I want to be an adult. I understand the importance of responsibility and I understand I have to grow up sometime. But I also see merit in the light heartedness of childhood and see the potential to delay adulthood. Many of my actions constitute me as being an adult; some make me more of an adult than many of my peers. Many actions, though, still keep me in a state of childhood. I do not want to take on the responsibility and consequences of being an adult. Right now, I am living as a non-existent person, because I have forgotten to renew my papers. My passport is expired and my license needs renewing, I have assignment deadlines drawling up on me from all around, but I still (completely intentionally) put off working for things like this blog, conversations with friends, “hormones” as Mrs. James would say and Counter Strike. I have the ability to whip myself into adulthood but I can not justify doing so myself. I think I am clinging to the parts of childhood I might have lost when I was younger and doing my best to stretch out what I have of my youth. Our lives fly past our lives at a constantly increasing rate. I am stuck in a dilemma between clinging on to what is left and setting myself up for the future. I think this is as good a time as any to whip out my notebook of musings and post a childish excuse for a poem:

Grade 12

No matter how agog you objurgate
You’ll not silence the cheerful knell of times
But with mal spirit you can desecrate
The kid within as your adulthood chimes
Yet, you can’t abscond your obligation
To go from child to man and back again
For you’ll always need shards of your creation
As the effulgence of life begins to drain

And no matter how stoic your aberration
You’ll confuse yourself about your age
As your mind fumbles graduation
You’ll see both pain and joy in every page
The years engraved like marble silhouette
The question lingers: “are we grown ups, yet?”

Parts of our lives are forcing us to grow up but I am just avoiding letting them control me. I am stuck in limbo between childhood and adulthood. I am ready to live alone and function as an individual, I am ready to leave my parents, but I am not ready to understand and appreciate all the responsibilities involved with it.

Connections to Keep or to Lose

2005-10-25T22:10:00.000-06:00

Introduction
I have not posted since a short post on Friday, so I guess my plan to post once a day has failed. However, I am still going to post regularly and keep to the plan outlines in my first post. This blog is primarily for my musings and to keep in contact with people, which is today’s topic.
Today in English class we talked about the importance of high school friends and the contact you keep with them. It was an interesting topic and I thought it would make a good blog entry and would be in the spirit of my web log. In class we dealt with such ideas as our ten year reunion and some little blips about who would become who. Obviously, I was most likely to be a drunken hobo on the street (which I am planning to do, but that is a different issue) in my class. Since I am enrolled in the advanced program, that was not to much of a prediction.

The “Advanced” Mentality
I have not really talked to any of my schoolmates about this to get their opinion, so the following is mostly my interpretation. In the advanced program we develop a closer bond than most of the other students, since we share many of the same classes and think from the same branches. We are mostly liberal minded (or democratic for all the Americans). Some are on the more conservative end of liberal *coughs out Phil’s name*, and others are very much left wing. The liberal minds could be from our “better” education or maybe the more free forming structure of our classes. I have never taken the time to analyze the program in enough detail and such issues are probably best asked of Jennifer W.
Through my four years in the program I have had time to analyze a general feel of the class. My assessment is not substantiated by exact case studies or extensive research but comes from the feeling deep in my gut. Personally, I think that feeling is a much better guide on a tentative matter like this. In general I believe the comradeship we form as classmates is undermined by our “smartness” and the competitive tension between us. As individuals everyone is solid and righteous, but as a program we are much farther from the human ideals.
I have seen many people sacked by their friends because they were causing an ineffective group dynamic. I am sure the same has happened to me many a time, but it is harder to be objective when looking at one self. To bring up an exact example: a friend of mine was working in a group with a bunch of other friends (I was in a different group) and he performed very much up to the standards required and even surpassed them from many angles. When the time came for group self-evaluation the group did not even take one moments hesitation from blaming all their problems on the one individual, just because that would raise their individual marks. To display my point with a more extreme example: if suddenly one of our teachers seriously offered to fail us (and had the actual legal means to do so) if we did not sabotage a friend’s project, most of us would not hesitate to do so or at least would seriously consider it.
I would like to think that I am different and would never stoop to such a low level. However, I am not completely sure that I can say that honestly, as much as I wish I could. Accurate self analysis, even though it is taught to us in the program, is extremely hard to accomplish. Many of my classmates might react with a rash: “I would never do such a thing”, but that reply would only raise the question of how good/bad their self analysis is.

The Better Mentality
The lack of quotation marks is not an omission my part, because I honestly believe there is a better mentality. Like outlined in the previous section the advanced mentality has many flaws with it. I think the best connections for the future are developed outside of the school’s social setting. Sports teams, clubs and good ol’ activities outside of school is what builds close ties. This is especially good for non competitive things. Surely the relationships you develop inside of school are good… but they are good for one thing: school. So if ten years down the road you have a question about math, you can go ahead and call your math wiz. If you want out of jail, though, I really do not recommend calling him with your “one” phone call.
To reinforce this point: there are plenty of people I socialize with only in school and about school. I might be interested in their day to day life (just because I am a nosy brat) but they have no interest in mine. People like that and I keep in basic contact. I might be able to help them in one area, and they can help me in another. If however socialization with such people is expanded outside a school setting a whole new field of contact opens.
To summarize, what you can use your connections for depends on where you made the connections. If you made them in school, you can use them for school. If you made them in sports, you can use them in sports. If you made a personal connection you can use them for personal things. Therefore, the best connections are ones made on a personal level.
The mentality comes in with a person’s willingness to make connections. The problem with being in advanced for four years is that you learn to over-analyze. When you go make connections with an advancee you are open to being over analyzed. Advancees are just an example; the main point is that one of the factors of mentality is level of analyzing. The second factor is the comfort level. If a person is fine and dandy where they are they are more bent towards conservatism and not making new connections. If the person is out of their element, then they are more liberal and have to make connections.
Hence the best atmosphere is one where there is little competition and everyone is new.

Application
Applications of this knowledge can be varied. For me, the biggest application is in choosing a University. I believe that the people you go to University with are much more important that the education from that University. All Universities (of the same level) have the same education but are attended by different groups of people.

Conclusion
As my mind runs out of things to spur out I have decided that this post has not really said much. It is important to keep all the connections you can, because it is good to have a variety of different friends. Each connection has its own traits and each connection has different demands, rewards and consequences. I think it is essential to keep all the connections that you can. For me, I think I will use this blog as the primary way of keeping in touch, because it is less demanding than email. So, if you are planning to read (and especially if you do not like my pink background) then add me to your Google Reader, or other RSS feed reader (http://devilfromrussia.blogspot.com/atom.xml).

Importance of One Set of Words

2005-10-21T23:21:00.000-06:00

I was going to make a post about my debate competition today. However, I do not have nearly enough time for an extensive post. Instead I want to talk about the speech round and in particular the comments of one of my friends and judges. I was feeling kind of down after a below-mediocre performance team wise in debate and was not personally impressed with my individual impromptu speech afterwards. However, a judge of mine gave such a huge compliment about it afterwards and I was very much flattered. The event raised an interesting topic for me: “the importance of approval of the people you admire”. I think general approval is good and general praise is good, but nothing is better than the praise of someone who is either better that you or someone you look up to, or both. I think the best kind of praise you can receive is true genuine praise from someone you look up to. Today really highlighted that issue for me and I felt obliged to post on the importance of praise from your role models.

Destructive Behavior

2005-10-20T22:19:00.000-06:00

Today the blog will see a concise post. I am swamped with debate research and have to make my words short. Today Oliver and I released the first versions of “ProMessenger” on our schools U: drive. When we released the tool and it was rather effective. However, we found a problem with people (our own acquaintances/friends) indulging in excessive spamming. The issued raised a concern for me: why do people involve themselves in destructive behavior? There are many cases when people do things that do not benefit them just to be destructive. This destruction applies to anything from society to them. I would like to hear some feedback on the issue. Is there a reason for being destructive without benefits? Or are there always benefits?

IP Chat

2005-10-19T22:44:00.000-06:00

Introduction
Today during our time in the drafting lab, my friends and I tried to establish a way to chat with each other without talking. Dave and Oliver lead the initiative and quickly discovered that most of the standard chat programs (Google Talk, MSN, etc.) were blocked. They tried Web MSN, but that was blocked as well. We found a LAN based service and started using that after a while. However the user interface was horrible and we decided the tool was too much of a pain to use. Oliver and I instantly started working on ways to make our own service. We both came to the decision of using the shared directory on our LAN network (the “drop box”) to make a text based chatting service. Oliver started working on it right away, I decided I would have a look at the DLL for the LAN service and see if I could savage something more advanced. Through more thought I was able to come up with an elaborate new way of establishing a chat service. After thinking for five periods I came up with an idea of a service based on many different IPs.

Outline
The basic idea behind my service is making it virtually independent from one main server. Through independence it becomes impossible to block by organizations and does not require one server being put under strain. The system depends on many separate nexuses hosted by different people with the guidelines of one main server. The program would consist of two parts: a chat client and a hosting client. Through chat anyone would be able to connect and through hosting anyone would be able to become a nexus.
Chat client:
The chat client and chat part of the system would still be based on log on. “Key nexuses” would hold the usernames and passwords of different people. Their profile itself (showing personal information, friend’s lists and all the other nexuses the person is connected to) would be essential but could be hosted from anywhere (even the person’s own C: drive). To make naming easier, you could register your own computer with a “key nexuses” and it would attribute a name to your machine (since most home users have varying IP addresses). In other words you could register with someone like “importantserver.com” or you could make your own domain name like: “importantserver.com/user”. This way of making your own domain name would allow for more names as well as keeping password information on a trusted computer.
Each chat client and their profile (which could consist of more than one account) will communicate to other users through direct IP links. When you click on a user’s name a message will be sent to one of the nexuses you share in common and you will be provided with the users current IP (it will be hidden deep inside the client so it is not too easy to retrieve). When you type up a message and send it, it will go straight to that person’s computer without having to take a detour to servers like msn.com or something. This direct link would make the connection slightly faster and much more efficient for such VoIP and Video conferencing. When several users are online each client decides which way of sending information will be more effective (through Nexus or to each individual IP directly) and takes the best course of action.
Hosting Client:
The hosting client will allow any individual to make their personal computer or server into a nexus. If a person has a server with a static IP, then they can become a full fledges nexus that can give out its own usernames (although people with usernames from other servers will still be able to connect). If the host-to-be does not have their own domain name, then they will have to find a nexuses that can provide them with a name of sorts. This local and easy to set up server system, will allow groups of friends to have their own chat server and for sites to host effective chat rooms. This might seem a lot like IRC, but the big difference is that there is no site that you have to send all information through; you just need a site to get other people’s IPs from. Each hosting client will also allow the option of being free-access or password protected.

String Connecting
With all these servers being around it could become easy to get lost and confused. A special system is included in my plan to account for confusion. If you want to find some nexuses, (lets say if your profile got lost) you just call a friend by their IP and you will be automatically given every nexus connection they have and allow others to view. The same will happen whenever you engage in a chat. For every nexuses on your list of connections you will be given an option of making it viewable by others or not. Whenever you connect to someone their client will automatically tell your client all the other viewable nexuses they are connected to. This system will allow you to stay connected to someone even one (or more) servers go down. As long as you can find one server in common you can connect (or as long as you do not close the window and keep a direct link). You will also be able to block users or nexuses or disconnect from nexuses as you please. If you decide a certain server is giving out your IP to people that really should not have it then you just disconnect from it and your client will not send your IP to them anymore.

Conclusion
The biggest thing going for my system is that it is completely decentralized. Decentralization makes the system almost impossible to shut down. Instead of running through one server like we do now a more internet type system is applied. My IP Chat program follows the philosophy that founded the internet: a serious of separate networks (nexuses) interconnected between each other. I will start preliminary work on this project sometime next week and see how far I can get before I hit a dead end. If you have any questions, advice or other comments, feel free to post them.

Lecture vs. Trial

2005-10-18T23:17:00.000-06:00

Introduction
In the past three days, you might have noticed a lot of changes to the layout of this blog. I am fooling around with html and learning it in the process. There are many things I still want to change but I am getting to where I want to be. The trial process and reading of my template has got me wondering. What is a better form of education, being told how to do something or learning by trial and error?

Lecture
The obvious benefit of a lecture style of learning is security. When you are being told how to do something before you ever try it, you are for less likely to make a mistake and damage something. I am not being advised by anyone as to how I should work with HTML, so if I make a big mistake and somehow republish my site with the mistake, I will be stuck with it. If I am explained something I will hopefully not make the mistake in the first place.
Being taught first also helps to pass on the wisdom of elders and warn you about bad habits. I learnt guitar by myself, without an instructor. Since I learn by trial and error and kind of doing things myself, I developed several bad habits. I do such things as strum away from the strings (which is technically more demanding than strumming with the strings) and I adopted many alternative grips with my left hand. With proper mentorship such mistakes could be avoided and no bad habit would be formed. I learn how to do everything with my habits and I am used to them, and they are very hard to change even though I know they are improper. A lecture approach to learning would allow you to avoid the pitfalls in the first place and do things in a proven way.
The lecture style does not leave any major points without discussion. Since the people who are teaching you already know all the big skill in what you are learning, they can cover all the bases. When I learnt guitar, I did not get big into theory and rhythm. Thankfully to my analytical background I naturally picked up more than enough theory while I learnt everything else. However, I still have troubles with rhythm. If you give me a drum, you will have to wait until a cold day in hell before I make a steady beat.

Trial
Trial is my preferred method of learning. I learn programming, video editing, guitar, biking, courting and more through trial and error. Surely the experience has not been without its hazards, but I found it more enjoyable. Like in my previous post I am mentioning where I am coming from to get my bias out there so you can analyze my information to a better degree.
Trial leads to more skill development. When you are being taught something, you are told to assume certain things so that the lecture process can be streamlined. With trial you have to prove everything yourself. The process of proving everything involved to do what you want develops a good learning skill as well as giving you a strong grasp over the information. Through out my education in the United States and Canada I have been dismayed many times by how students might know a certain rule or law but not know how to prove it. Without the knowledge of how the rules they use are proven the students are hampered to using it only in certain cases that have been taught to them and outside of that.
Trial is much better at tailoring to your learning style. Since you are the one responsible for what you try and what you are trying to achieve, you become in full control of your learning. I teacher can do their best to try and tailor a program to you as an individual, but since they never know what you are really thinking they can not do it to the extent you can yourself. This tailoring does not always get you to your final destination faster but it usually makes you a much better learner. I learnt programming and guitar much faster through trial and error and self-teaching than I ever would have if I followed the route of some of my more conservative counterparts.

Conclusion
I try to encompass both trial and lecture in my learning, but I find trial to be a much more advanced form of learning. I find that fewer people have mastery of trial than over lecture. A lot of people just go around asking questions hoping someone will answer them instead of really putting their noggin to work. Asking questions is not a bad thing, but I find using your head more rewarding. In the end, learning styles depend on the individual. Jobs are split among both trial based learners and lecture learners. The lecture students can make good factory workers, doctors, standard lawyers and other jobs that follow certain strict and often repetitive guidelines. They are an essential and biggest part of society. Trial learners are more suited towards innovation and hence fit better in science, corporate management, music, art and other fields that depend on new ideas and ways of doing things. To bring this back to my bias and to summarize in general. Lecture learners are the majority of society and make sure that everything that we have works like it suppose to. Trial learners are the minority and they are the ones that develop new things and move society forwards. I find moving something forwards or making something new more interesting than maintenance and therefore prefer trial learning.

Silly vs. Serious and White Lies vs. Dignity

2005-10-17T21:50:00.000-06:00

Introduction
Today some facts came to my attention. Of course I will not mention details because I am hoping to not make this blog into a work of angst. I also do not want to offend any people directly. The issue I was faced with today razed two very important questions for me, and I am not able to effectively substantiate myself for either side. I can only provide my personal opinion, and if you want to add to it, then please comment. If your comments are well articulated I will add them to this entry. The first issue is what is better being silly or being serious. I am not implying to take the extremes of the spectrum, but rather what is better to be naturally silly with the ability to turn serious or naturally serious with the ability to turn silly. The second issue is distinguishing between white lies and their infringement of dignity. White lies apply to small lies that (to the person making them) seem to not be a big deal and are meant to comfort a person. Dignity or the recognition of it: is the realization that people should be told things upfront instead of beating around the bush or being lied to.

Silly vs. Serious
I find myself to be a rather silly or light-hearted person that can lean towards being serious. How well I am at being serious various depending as to who you ask. Some people think I am very much capable of switching easily to a serious mode when the time is right. Others on the other hand believe I am completely unmannered and have no sense of when fun stops and soberness should begin. I like to believe I am the first, but since the ladder exists, that is impossible. However, I also doubt I am the second extreme of the spectrum. Most likely I am somewhere in-between, or my change to seriousness is drastically different with different people. I can not be an accurate judge of such a matter; however I can defiantly say I am silly first. This bend towards lightheartedness makes me naturally biased toward the silly side and I will need all the help I can get to raise points for the serious side of the issue.
Silly:
Two days ago I was discussing movie selections with my dad and wondering what kind of movie he wants me to go rent. He said he would prefer a comedy and substantiated it with word that (roughly translated from Russian) shape the main case for vivacity very well:

“I would much rather laugh, than cry at a movie. I don’t understand all the people that pay money just to go and have a cry. Why would I want to be sad when I can laugh? Drama’s are always good, but they are nothing compared to some lighthearted comedy”

Being silly is essential to happiness, and happiness is essential to a fulfilling life. It is important to have the skill to be serious in urgent situations, but being exuberant at all the other times is essential. There is no meaning in all the things seriousness can achieve if you can not be happy about it. Being serious most of the time does allow you to be silly sometimes. All that means is that you can achieve more in your life and then enjoy it less.
Serious
Like I mentioned earlier I have a preformed biased against being predominantly serious. I understand that being serious makes it much easier to concentrate at the task at hand. The next step to that is that you can accomplish more than a silly person in the same amount of time. This could leave you more leisure time to enjoy what you worked towards, but I do not think that case is always true. I think the whole debate comes down to which is more important; what you have or how you use it. To dumb it down (and make much more sexual): “is it the size, or how you use it?” Of course it is easy to say that what you achieved is more important, but you need to remember that all men end six feet below the ground. Of course you can say that being silly is selfish that you only make yourself happy, while if you were serious you could leave more to your children and make their lives better.

White Lies vs. Dignity
As a person, I try my best to give everyone dignity and avoid white lies as much as possible. If you ask me something like “do I look fat in this dress” and you actually look fat I will state it. I do this for two reasons. One is to because I prefer to not have people blind me with their blind eyes and hence I try not to do the same to them. The second is because I am a very blunt person. I believe bluntness and frequent justified criticism is the only way to bring meaning to my praise. In my opinion praise is nearly worthless from someone who praises everybody. As you can see, I am very much biased towards the dignity side. I do not believe in lying to people just because I think it will not harm them and it will just make them feel better. Of course there are always exceptions in my mind, but that is my general ideal and way of displaying my bias on this issue.
White lies
The benefit of white lies is that they can be used to make people feel better or to avoid hurting them. However, in the end they are still lies, just not serious ones. I understand the benefit of giving people compliments through white lies or avoiding hurting them, but I think those only provide surface happiness.
Dignity
Treating people with dignity I think is essential. You have to avoid using white lies at all costs, because I think being direct and upfront is more rewarding in the end. You do not have to be extremely blunt but direction is essential. It will not give people a quick fix of happiness like white lies could, but I think in the long run treating people with dignity and being upfront is more rewarding. Plus, I find that a friend that can be completely honest with you is a much better friend then one that says lies as compliments.

Conclusion
As I outlined, I am a silly person that tries to treat people with blunt dignity. I believe the debate between silly and serious is not resolved in my mind. Even with my silly bias I can see a lot merit in both arguments. My arguments for white lies are fewer and in that case I think dignity wins. I will be happy to reevaluate my decision as time passes. I will update this post with any significant comments and maybe eventually write a follow with better formed opinions.

Google OS

2005-10-16T21:23:00.000-06:00

Introduction

For a while now, I have been talking to people like Kumaran and posting on forums about my ideas for Google OS. I am not a big fan of some of the big ideas out their regarding Google running a supper cluster OS and you having an account on it. Some people such as Skrenta phrase their arguments well:

Google is a company that has built a single very large, custom computer. It's running their own cluster operating system. They make their big computer even bigger and faster each month, while lowering the cost of CPU cycles. It's looking more like a general purpose platform than a cluster optimized for a single application.
While competitors are targeting the individual applications Google has deployed, Google is building a massive, general purpose computing platform for web-scale programming.

However, I still disagree. I believe Google will create a free, single PC based system that is linked to their servers. Centralization does not float my boat, and in my opinion it does not float Google’s boat either. So far everything I have seen from Google has been very much decentralized. They run approximately 0.1 million servers in different parts of the world in small server farms to optimize searching and keep themselves decentralized. I understand the basing for using all the Google servers as one super computer:

The Google server farm constitutes one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. At 126-316 teraflops, it can perform at over one third the speed of the Blue Gene supercomputer, which is the most powerful computing machine available to humanity. (source)

This does lend itself toward creating some sort of centralized system. But when you think about all the people that would be part of the system and all the process running on the system, such a thing does not seem feasible. In my opinion it is more plausible to have each computer run a Google OS and be connected to the internet and the special Google Network. Each computer will be responsible for its standardized functions, but all the leftover processing power would be given over to Google to with as they please (much like the program Folding@Home). The connection to a single network or Google users would also allow Google to study their surfing patters (as they already do with their net mapping), but since they would control the Google OS network, they would be able to alter the connections to optimize the speed. Google would be able to become a road planner for its own pseudo-net.

Free
Google would have to make its Google OS free because they have to, and because they can.
Have to:
Google would have to provide a free OS in order to compete well on the personal OS market. Right now there are only two major providers of paid-for-OS on the market and only one of them can boast that it makes money from its OS. Both Microsoft and Apple provide their own priced OS, however only Microsoft provides it successfully. Apple OS only exists because that is the only OS available on the computers Apple makes. Microsoft on the other hand, does not manufacture computers and manages to make money on the OS alone. Microsoft’s monopoly over the market, forces other operating systems (such as Linux) to be free or not exist at all. Google OS would need to be much like Linux and MacOS to be successful. However, unlike Linux, Google would have no need to be open source, since they already has a wonderful team of computer scientists working for them. Unlike Apple, Google would have to be non-proprietary and compatible.
Can:
I have no clue how much Microsoft has patent, but Google would have to take as much as possible and function as much like Microsoft as possible. If Google makes an incompatible OS (even if it is a good operating system) they would not be able to hold more success than something like Linux. Instead Google would have to find a way to run on the same computers as Windows, and use the same software as Windows. Like I mentioned, I have no clue how much Google could steal, but I am sure it could design some sort of operating system that could run all the basic 3rd party software for windows.
The reason Google OS can be free is because the company is an advertisement giant, not a software company. Google will be able to benefit from discreet ads it implants in its OS and from the spare processing power it would take from its users. The Google ads would have to be convenient and customizable enough so that the system users would not find it a hassle or bother. The spare CPU usage would have to be efficient enough so that the person using the system does not notice it at all. With a good way or providing ads and linking all that spare processing power, Google could easily make enough money to cover its development, maintenance and upgrading costs for the system, as well as make some extra money to throw elsewhere.

Single PC based
The argument for having each operating system being a single entity is simple. The amount of bandwidth and processing power on Google’s part to keep all the users running would be too great to handle effectively. Even with estimates of 126-316 Teraflops in processing power, the Google super-cluster would not be able to keep everyone satisfied. To show how this works with basic math lets take the upper part of that range 316 Teraflops and do our calculations for that. A standard PC runs in excess of 2 GHz or a few Gigaflops. The PlayStation 3 is rated at 2.005 Teraflops (200th fastest in the world) and the Xbox at half that, due to consoles’ graphics processors, but we only want to deal with CPU speeds. Hence we can say that our average PC runs at about 3.16 Gigaflops (to make our calculations easier). Now we need an estimate for user base. Currently Linux has an estimated 29 million users. Let us say that Google OS does not do as great and only makes 1/3 of what Linux has for a user base, or 10 million people. 3.16*10^14 (316 Teraflops) divided by 1*10^7 (10 million people) comes out to 3.16*10^7 flops. If we compare the 31.6 megaflops we got for an answer to the 3.16 gigaflops that our computers run at, we can see the impossibility of the matter.

Linked to Google servers
The link to the Google servers is to allow Google to access users’ spare resources, to make a pseudo internet and tailor advertisments.
Spare resources:
The spare resource use would work much like Folding@Home or the one that started it: SETI@Home. Most computers run at around 50% power. My computer right now, while running Google Desktop, Mozilla Firefox, MSN, Word, Winamp, XFire and an assortment of other programs, is averaging around 20% of its CPU usage and 41% of my RAM. But we should stick with 50% just to be safe. Now if we come back to the same numbers: 10 million 3.16 gigaflop processors. Lets take half of 3.16*10^9 and multiply that by 1*10^7 and we come out with 1.58*10^16 Flops. That is 15800 teraflops, which is 50 times more than the high end of what Google has already. Of course we can not expect 100% efficiency and have to account for computers not always being on. So let us say the transfer is about 50% effective and that a standard computer is on for 1/5th of the day (less than 5 hours) and that we split each flops across 5 computers. Calculate 1.58*10^16 * 0.5 * 0.2 * 0.2 and we get 3.16^14 or 316 Teraflops. In other words by getting 10 million people to use their OS, Google could double its operating speed.
Pseudo internet:
With complete knowledge of people’s surfing Google would be able to customize its own internet (Let us call it GoogleNet for now). With knowledge of what sites each individual wants to access and with a couple of servers running a server version of Google OS they could devise their own map of how to more effectively link all the Google OS users and all the Google OS servers. If you are trying to contact another person running Google OS directly, or are contacting a Google OS server, instead of going through the internet you would go through the Google sub-network. Since Google can customize how your packets fly around in their sub network they can optimize it for quicker speed. If you are trying to contact a non Google computer, then Google can take you to one of its own computers virtually near the one you are trying to contact and then let your packets fly out onto the internet, thus optimizing speed.
To keep this sort of subnet active and efficient Google would need a lot of power. They would need to devise new software to make fast net mapping and to evaluate peoples surfing. For that task they can use the same PhDs they hired already. The power for the processing would come from the spare resources Google could draw from the users of its system.

Conclusion
In my mind there is no debate as to if Google OS will come out. The only debate is when the operating system will arrive, what features it will have, and how everyone will react. What I am perplexed about is if the alleged Google Grid will come before or after Google operating system. The Grid and OS have wide discussion across the internet but there are no real comments from Google itself. I guess we will all just have to sit around and hope that Google does not get sidetracked or Netscaped.

Welcome to the Devosphere

2005-10-14T21:40:00.000-06:00

So let’s start this blogging thing. What can I really say about blogging? Well, I did the teenage angst blog: that was okay, although pathetic. Livejournal is good for that sort of thing. Blogger here though... this has taken the Blogosphere to the next step. We have left the stage of needless teenage angst provided by such thing as Livejournal (and now MSN Spaces) and entered the world of publishing. This seems very much a more formalized place where people can post their opinions instead of their angsty life. I have not really looked around the blogs on this site but hopefully when I get around to it I will not be disappointed.

I will be going away to University after this school year ends, so hopefully this can be one of the ways I stay in touch. Most of my friends are staying here and attending the University of Saskatchewan, but my parents will kill me if I do. They think (and I mostly agree) that the UofS is a second rate University; hence I will be going out of province and after undergrad out of the country.
I have recently narrowed myself down to 3 Universities: McGill, McMaster and Waterloo. However, I still do not have an exact idea of what I want to do, or even what field I want to go into. I want my blip of an existence to make a difference and have some sort of impact. I want my job to involve people, and yet still apply some of my analytical talents.
My mom is a doctor and she wants me to become one too. She wants me to grow up and take over her practice. However, I am not interested in medicine. I have more interest in my father's field: Physics. However, he has a dual PhD in Physics and Mathematics, so I have too much to live up to there. I am also interested in Political Science, but sadly that is not a good field for making money.
I do not want to sound shallow and centered on money. However, I grew used to a lifestyle that requires a good amount of money to maintain. My parents will pay my way through University, but it is below my dignity to rely on them even for one day after I am out of school.

But bringing this back to blogging, this was an example of the sort of things you might see from me. Most posts, however, will involve more real information and less about me. This is more of an introductory post saying a bit about me and why this blog exists. My friend Kumaran brought me back to blogging and introcuded me to blogger, so check him out. Hopefully I will update regularly and make this blog interesting enough to be worth reading. Have fun in the blog of Devil from Russia, and remember, always bring a map when you enter the blogosphere!