David Brin on the failure of SETI

David read my Fermi Paradox page and noted I'd omitted a 1983 article of his. I need to add it in, but for the moment here's his reference and commentary.

David is not a fan to active SETI, though the Fermi Paradox is a bit reassuring on that count. It probably won't work, but at worst it might finish us off.

Contrary Brin: (pause) Extinction ... and avoiding it...

...John, my 1983 paper is: Quarterly Journal of Royal Astronomical Society, fall1983, v.24, pp283-309 Also see: Am.J.Physics Jan89 -Resource Letter on Extraterrestrial Civilization. (Downloadable at http://www.davidbrin.com/sciencearticles.html or http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1983QJRAS..24..283B (let me know if you have troubles.)

The unique feature is that it remains the ONLY scientific paper about SETI that attempts to review all ideas, instead of using zero evidence to support a single adamant theory. In 22 years, there has still not been any paper as comprehensive. I was supposed to write a book, but who has time?

The irony... the SETI crowd has become among the most cult-like and narrowminded group anywhere. Their ideology has radicalized and dogmatized to such an extent that they will drive out anyone who does not pledge faith to things like "all advanced alien races are automatically altruistic." Ooops, sorry. Using the word "alien" will also get you ejected. Along with any mention of the ten thousand sci fi gedankenexperiments about first contact.

They are now supporting "active seti"... or poking at the experiment by blaring YOOHOO! at the cosmos with radio telescopes, an utter betrayal of the pledge to passively sift the sky and listen "for as long as it takes." Needless to say, anybody outside of the cult finds this arrogant presumption appalling. But they are invulnerable to reason. If you ask for discussions before yelling into an unknown cosmic jungle, you are "paranoid".

The ability of human beings to romanticize, and turn modernist ideals into romanticism, is legendary. Marxists turned a future-oriented notion into a reactionary killing machine. The 1930s "modernist" architects became tyranical magicians, as soon as they could. What we are trying to do is very very hard and contrary to human urges. SETI is the latest sad exapmple of the fact that even scientists will avoid Citokate, unless they are either very wise... or prevented from doing so.

Our struggle is uphill...

George Bush; Deity of the Computer Simulation?

David Brin has a rather disturbing essay asserting that George W Bush is best understood as the hero of a computer simulation in which we are all (presumably) bit actors: Contrary Brin: The Holodeck Scenario: Part II.

It is kind of creepy. How can someone so incompetent win so many times? Maybe God has a really weird sense of humor. Or maybe Bush is God ...

The flu plan - with thanks to Katrina and Plane-gate

Bush has unveiled the the pandemic Flu Plan. It will be interesting to read the reviews in the medical journals, but at least one UK virologist interviewed on NPR was impressed. The cynic in me, which has been proved right so often by this administration, suspects the timing and emphasis of this announcement owes something to both Katrina and the Libby-indictment.

Rove and Bush go on the attack when they're under attack. The Scalita appointment and waving the death and destruction flag are political attack moves. Bush last used the 'viral attack' meme to justify the invasion of Iraq (Remember "Dr. Death"? No? That's ok, almost no-one does.).

So I'm betting this Bush/Rove are playing up the death and destruction angle to further their own political agenda. On the other hand, I don't expect anything good to come from these guys in the absence of an ulterior motive. The flu plan sounds pretty reasonable. Late, but good. So perhaps something positive will come of bad events and bad intent ...

The flaw in iTunes: 2 users, 2 iPods - and our RetinaLock future

A revised version of an Apple Discussion Group posting of mine:

Apple - Discussions - The flaw in iTunes: 2 users, 2 iPods

There's a design flaw in iTunes, but happily there's an "easy" fix. How can we get Apple to apply the fix?

Problem: When my wife syncs her Nano to our Library, she messes up my smart playlists (and vice-versa). For example, the 'last played' value is now the last time EITHER of us listened to a tune, so that's no longer useful. Shockingly, despite being married for about 2 decades, we also don't rate tunes quite the same way.

The trouble is that OS X is a multi-user system but iTunes isn't really a multi-user solution - yet.

Here's the fix: We need to be able to treat shared Playlists and Libraries as though they were local, including being able to create derivative playlists.

I was surprised to learn that iTunes doesn't do this. One can share a Playlist readily, but one can't drag and drop items to create a local client Playlist. Note there's no DRM issue or copyright issue here, a Playlist only references a tune, it doesn't copy it. [wrong - obviously! See below.]

Here's how it should work.

1. iTunes Library runs in its own user account. It has global Playlists. The iTunes Library is shared.

2. I run a version of iTunes in my own account, Emily runs one in her own user account. We both are clients of the same shared Library, though of course we could have local tunes too. We create our own playlists and rate songs locally. We switch to our local accounts to sync our iPods. Ratings and last played dates and other metadata are local. We'd also be able sync with our own contacts and calendars!

How do we get Apple to implement this design fix? Obviously the engineers have known for years that this is the way to go, so it's management we have to persuade.

---

Update 11/2/05 -- Oh, but it is the DRM

As usual it's the DRM. I'd forgotten the little detail that the music is transferred to the iPod when one syncs. That's the problem.

How best to understand this? Think of the secret and forbidden lust of the media companies -- the (patent pending 2040) RetinaLock™ (Palladium Inside!™). The RetinaLock™ prevents any access to DRMd material by control of visual inputs. BrainLock does the same for auditory, tactile, and olfactory inputs. BrainLock Enhanced™ (mandatory upgrade 2045) makes it impossible to consider any action that would circumvent the workings of the BrainLock™ (thereby ending the trickle of death sentences related to violations of the DMCA amendment of 2043).

Really, the idea of "shared property" is a legacy of ancient law related to the fading practice of marriage. The media companies abhore this idea. Each person should own their own BrainLocked™ media (ok, just biometric locked until the advantages of BrainLock™ associated enhancements become irresistible). If you and your multiple spouses and myriad children want to listen to music, you each need your own music stream. Joint access is discouraged, though it will not be effectively blocked for some time.

The bottom line is that Apple's media partners really don't want multiple users accessing a single iTunes repository. They can't do anything about multiple iPods for now (after all, a single user might have an iPod and a Nano!), but they accept that grudgingly. They won't allow anything to encourage multiple iPods with multiple users, and that means this "design problem" isn't going to get fixed -- because it's working as designed.

Hmpph. I begin to see the romantic appeal of outlaw-hood.

Update 11/2: I have a workaround.

Update 9/4/11: I have had a hard time finding this old post, because I kept looking for "RetinaLock" instead of "BrainLock". So I tweaked it to include RetinaLock. Same meaning though.

Bad day on the net: Google, Blogger, Apple

Bad day on the net ...

1. Google has been very slow and even non-responding for about 16 hours.
2. Blogger is losing posts (database corruption?)
3. Apple's site is slow and won't authenticate.

Happily the BBC is working.

Wow. Bad day on the net.

Perverse consequences of 'digital rights management' - media centers don't work well.

Recently I've been trying to execute on the vision of streaming audio from my iTunes/iMac store to my home stereo.

It's been surprisingly difficult. The iTunes/AirPort/TuneConnect combo sort of works (thanks to TuneConnect, no thanks to Apple). The non-Apple solutions from Sonos, Roku and SlimDevices all seem less than they should be.

Why is that? The technical challenges seem to be manageable. The answer, I fear, is Digital Rights Management (DRM) and, indirectly, the foul and insufficiently feared Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). In this case the DRM is Apple's FairPlay (not their AAC file format, rather the FairPlay DRM controls), but the flavor of DRM isn't relevant.

We want to be able to stream compressed music (bandwidth!) from a server to multiple synchronized or independent receiving devices. The receiving devices need to be able to communicate with the server and have their own volume and on/off controls. The receiving devices need to work with a remote control and they should display playlists and the like (those could also go on the remote). The receiving device should be compact, quiet, and cost under $200.

All of these things are attainable, but for the unanticipated side-effects of DRM. This is tricky, but follow the logic chain. Apple can't do anything in their software or hardware to make the Apple Store DRMd music experience inferior to the 'rip a cd' experience. This means if they implement a solution that allows one to stream bandwidth efficient compressed music to a music player, the music player must support Apple's DRM (FairPlay).

Ok, that's maybe doable (though in fact nothing but a PC or Mac currently supports FairPlay -- so maybe it's not so easy to do). Imagine the device supports FairPlay. Now someone breaks FairPlay. Fine -- Apple patches their software to force one to update the DRM mechanism. Problem is apple has no direct control over the FairPlay implementation in the peripheral device. So they either break the peripheral (can't play the new DRM implementation), or they can't fix their hacked DRM.

So in order to protect their DRM, and keep their partners happy, Apple can't stream DRM'd AAC music. So they can't stream any AAC music. So they can't do network efficient music streaming to non-computer peripherals, and they therefore can't stream to more than one Airport Express (or any other device) at a time.

Perverse and very bad consequences. We haven't even begun to explore all the nasty side-effects of 'digital rights management'.

see also: Apple's foray

Update 11/9/05: This patent is probably relevant to this issue.

SONY jumps the shark - a spyware DRM installation with SONY music protected CDs

Did SONY really think they'd get away with this? They've just jumped the shark.

A developer noted some odd system behavior after playing a SONY CD on his computer. He made the connection after some serious detective work: Mark's Sysinternals Blog: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far.

SONY had installed digital rights management software on his windows machine that profoundly altered many of the XP system internals. They may have broken a number of state, federal and EU laws. The software they installed cannot be removed.

I've written earlier about the perverse effects of digital rights management, but this seems as much a SONY problem as a DRM problem. SONY has shown they are a sinking and desperate company.

Update: Slashdot is all over this.

The Bush/Cheney cover-up of treason worked

Excellent point. It wasn't just hubris. Rove knew that to win the election they had to cover-up the treasonous outing of a CIA spy. They did and they won. The cover-up was worth the price. Even Libby will simply fight until he's pardoned.

Needless to say, "Justice" has been having a bad five years, and the future looks no brighter.

Salon.com - War Room

Today is the first Tuesday in November. That doesn't count for much this year, but it did last year. On the first Tuesday in November 2004, the American people reelected George W. Bush.

What did they know then? On the question of whether the White House had revealed the identity of a CIA agent in order to undercut criticism of the Iraq war, not much. The president had suggested that he didn't know who had leaked Valerie Plame's identity, and he had promised to fire anyone who did. Scott McClellan had assured the American people that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby weren't involved, and he said that the president knew -- at least so far as Rove was concerned -- that it was ridiculous to say otherwise. Reporters for Time and the New York Times knew Rove and Libby had been involved, but they kept that knowledge to themselves as voters went to the polls and reelected a president a year ago today.

There's a short way to say that, and E.J. Dionne nails it today:

"The coverup worked."

As Dionne notes, Patrick Fitzgerald suggested at his press conference Friday that his investigation might have been completed in October 2004 rather than October 2005 if Time's Matthew Cooper and the Times' Judy Miller had testified when they first received subpoenas. In other words, the American public might have learned a month before Bush was reelected, rather than a year later, that members of his administration had outed a CIA agent for political gain and had lied about it afterward...

How to Clean Gutters - from eHow.com

How to Clean Gutters - eHow.com

A good reference! I'll use a bag next time. The Google ads are interesting too ...

Why the GOP doesn't worry about mundane reality -- Trent Lott and the end-times

A story twice removed from the source, so taken with some skepticism:

The Grinch Who Stole Fitzmas | Cosmic Variance

... Yesterday a friend of mine told me a story that she was told by a friend of hers, well-known explorer Sylvia Earle. Apparently Earle found herself at a fancy White House dinner, seated next to Trent Lott of all people. Innocent that she is, Earle thought this would be a great opportunity to explain to him the various ways in which our activities are wreaking havoc with the environment, in the oceans as well as in the atmosphere. After listening patiently to her over the course of dinner, at the end Lott nodded his head and said, But you have to understand that the long-term fate of the Earth doesn’t really matter to us, since everything will be re-arranged when the Lord returns on Judgment Day.

Maybe Lott was tweaking her, or maybe he was misinterpreted, but what he says makes sense to me. If you are a logical end-times fundamentalist, this interpretation springs directly from your core beliefs. The world is disposable and transitory, we need not plan for the future for there will be no human future.

A lot of the new GOP is made up of end-times fundamentalists. The actions of the GOP make sense in that context. (Budget deficits? Let not fights over budgets detract from the Lord's work; the end-times will preempt such mundane matters.)

So how many Republicans are really comfortable with all of this?

The Snows of Kilimanjaro are no more

The glacier is gone. It will return one day, but perhaps not when humans will look upon it.

A tiny event in the history of the world, but it deserves a moment's silence.

Do we really have an election in Minnesota on November8th?

MyBallot.net, a Minnesota ballot information site, is still awaiting the 2004 elections. Happily the contact person tells me he's going to rework it soon.

These no-state-wide off-year elections scare me. This is the election cycle where we get fundamentalists on the school boards. Our newspapers aren't helping very much, but they're all in a severe state of depression these days as their revenues spiral downwards.

The election, if it is really going to be held, will be on November 8th, 2005. Good luck finding out who or what's on the ballot! (The only bright spot is that Randy Kelly, the man who sold his soul to Bush, will likely move from the mayoral office to a well paying job in the Republican party.)

Update: oops! I had Nov 2nd in the title.

Joel Spolsky explains why splogs (spam blogs) are proliferating

Splogs are proliferating because they get their revenue stream from Google's custoemrs:

Joel on Software

When you connect the dots, what seems to be happening is that scammers are doing four things.

1. First, they create a lot of fake blogs. There are slimy companies that make easy to use software to do this for you. They scrape bits and pieces of legitimate blogs and repost them, as if they were just another link blog. It is very hard to tell the difference between a fake blog and a real blog until you read it for a while and realize there's no human brain behind it, like one of those Jack Format radio stations that fired all their DJs, or maybe FEMA.
2. Then, they sign up for AdSense.
3. Then you buy or rent a network of zombie PCs (that is, home computers that are attached to the Internet permanently which have been infected by a virus allowing them to be controlled remotely).
4. Finally, use those zombie PCs to simulate clicks on the links on your blog. Because the zombie PCs are all over the Internet, they appear to be legit links coming from all over the Internet.

Again, evolution in action. How do the ID folk understand our world? Without natural selection, all of this ingenuity seems miraculous. (Ok, so there's some intelligence involved, even if it is nasty in nature.)

My stuff appears in splogs. Verrry annoying. Eventually most folks will welcome the safe and sterile world of Microsoft's Palladium.

Odd moments in tech history -- the analog laserdisc

Emily and I were reminescing today, as pre-elders tend to do, about payphones, record players, and other all-but-lost things. (Our daughter tells us that her pre-school has a "big-CD player", which we believe is a record player.) All of a sudden, perhaps for the first time in 20 years, I remembered the Laserdisc.

Talk about oddities in tech history. This was an analog media read by a laser beam; basically a record player in which the stylus was light itself. It was primarily used to distribute movies in the late 70s and early 80s. Wikipedia claims there are still a few million players in use, but even the hardcore fans admit the era has passed.

I remember a talk given by a very bright researcher at the National Library of Medicine. They were engaged in a large imaging project, and were storing the images on Laserdisc. I wish I could recall the numbers, but at the time there was a huge advantage over any available digital store. A comparable library, the Bristol Biomedical Library Archive, held 20,000 hi-resolution images. I think each image had an information density comparable to a 35mm slide. In my limited experience capturing the full information content of a 35mm slide can generate a 40MB TIFF. So the Videodisc held the analog equivalent of 800 GB of digital data, or almost a Terabyte of digital data. Even today a TB is a lot of data; that's almost as much as all my home drives combined. Analog storage has its advantages.

An original observation about alternative medicine: there's no internal conflict

I've been enjoying Photon's series on quackery, but most of it is familiar, albeit entertaining. This chapter, however, was new to me:

A Photon in the Darkness: How to Succeed at Quackery (Without Even Trying): Part 3

Professional Courtesy:

No matter how much you loathe your fellow quacks or think that they have the intellect of a peach pit (after the laetril has been extracted), never, never criticize or question their quackery. This is the classic situation of people living in glass houses. Throwing stones will do nobody any good.

If you want an example of how to behave, go to one of the many quack conventions. There you will see speakers get up and say things that are absolutely incompatible with what the previous speaker has said - but they won't make any mention of it. And if the two are in a panel discussion, they will say only nice things about the other's quackery.

This is in distinct contrast to real medical conferences, where voices are raised, snide comments made and embarassing questions are asked. This sort of unseemly and impolite behavior can only be tolerated when there is real data to support what people are saying. In the world of quackery, that sort of frank discussion and argument would tear apart the delicate fabric of our fortunes. Under no circumstances are you to ever, ever even vaguely suggest that the Emperor has no clothes.

This deserves attention. Disputation based on data and logic is a hallmark of science. Intelligent Design evangelicals, however, dare not fight with (if there are any) secular Intelligent Designers. Massage therapists cannot criticize chiropractors. All must agree to live in peace, for if one fights, all are shown to be empty.