Obsidian Wings: next steps in the war on terror

Secret torture camps in Poland. Hmm. Where was Treblinka? You'd think the Poles would remember their past better. Running camps for foreign forces is a shady business.

Obsidian Wings makes some reasonable extrapolatons from the practices of the Bush adminnistration.

Amazon: buy a chapter, then buy the book

Amazon is showing some life! GMSV reports one can now buy a chapter of an Amazon book, then upgrade to the book. A good way to try out new authors.

Return the past - Amazon engages human computers

This small announcement is a historic event.

Prior to the 1940s a 'computer' was a human being who did computational tasks by hand. A large task might be distributed to hundreds of clearks, often women. These human computers did calculations and broke encryptions.

Then came the electronic computer. But there are some tasks our computers don't do well (yet). Image processing, for example. Speech recognition. Natural language processing. Managing calendars. responding to messages. Lots of stuff. Now Amazon has launched a program to restore the human computer: Amazon Mechanical Turk. The payments may not be large, but there are millions of people around the world that could do those tasks. If Amazon hooks up human computational needs to human 'computers' in Africa (via cell phone browsers) they will have initiated a world-changing event.

This little announcement may be the biggest news of the year. I've been waiting for this to happen for a few years, but I haven't commented on it since I've some business ideas in this domain.

DirectDeals.com: obsolete windows software

I'm not fond of most software upgrades, so a web site that sells outdated products is fine with me:

DirectDeals.com - Pc Software, Discount Software, Computer Software, Anti Virus Software, Computer Hardware

Click on the 'clearance' tab for the old and cheap packages.

Stop the megapixel madness

This is really nuts. The MHz madness in PCs caused some harm (diversion of design into meaningless numbers), but the megapixel madness in digital cameras is producing lousy pictures and driving out good cameras.

Sharp 10 megapixel 1/1.7" CCD: Digital Photography Review

As if noise and detail levels weren't bad enough from the latest batch of digital cameras based around the 8 megapixel Sharp CCD they've today announced one that crams even more pixels into tiny package. The RJ21W3BA0ET is a ten megapixel 1/1.7" CCD with 3766 horizontal and 2801 vertical pixels (total) and a pixel pitch of just 2.05 µm. We always kind of hope that the next compact sensor announcement will have some real innovation like higher sensitivity and lower noise but it appears as though market forces just want 'more megapixels'.

Friends shouldn't let friends buy these 10 mpixel monstrosities. Educate and warn! Six megapixels is probably as far as we can go with CCD technology on these small sensors. Which brings me to the new 6 mpixel image stabilized SONY ultra-compact. If I wasn't boycotting SONY due to their malignant incompetence, I'd be sorely tempted by this one.

Beyond madness: big media and big politics

I ranted a bit ago about the "BrainLock" technology of 2040 that will shut the final loopholes in digital rights management. I figured it was a good wild-eyed rant.

But then, a day later, another story makes my scenario seem all to likely:

EFF: DeepLinks

[if the proposed legislation passes ...] Every consumer analog video input device manufactured in the United States will be, within a year, forced to obey not one, but two new copy restriction technologies: a watermarking system called VEIL, and a rights system called CGMS-A (we've covered CGMS-A before; we'll talk a bit more about VEIL soon).

And what might these MPAA-specified, government-mandated technologies do?

They prescribe how many times (if at all) the analog video signal might be copied - and enforce it. This is the future world that was accidentally triggered for TiVo users a few months ago, when viewers found themselves lectured by their own PVR that their recorded programs would be deleted after a few days.

But it won't just be your TiVo: anything that brings analog video into the digital world will be shackled. Forget about buying a VCR with an un-DRMed digital output. Forget about getting a TV card for your computer that will willingly spit out an open, clear format.

Forget, realistically, that your computer will ever be under your control again. To allow any high-res digitization to take place at all, a new graveyard of digital content will have to built within your PC.

Freshly minted digital video from authorised video analog-to-digital converters will be marshalled here and here only, where they will be forced to comply with the battery of restrictions dictated by Hollywood.

In this Nightmare Before Turing, video content will be crippled, far more than it ever was in its old analog home. They will only be able to be recorded using "Authorized Recording Methods", or "Bound Recording Methods", and the entire subsystem will have to obey "robustness" requirements that will make circumvention for fair use - and open source development in general - near impossible.

The unprotected analog outputs of computers will be, in perpetuity, restricted to either DRM-laden standards, or to a "constrained image", "no more than 350,000 pixels". Analog video which has been branded as "do not copy", will last for only ninety minutes only in the digital world - and will be erased, literally frame by frame, megabyte by megabyte, from your PC, without your control. You'll watch a two hour film, and as you watch the final half hour, the first few scenes will be being dissolved away by statute.

Moore's Law won't dictate how technology might improve and innovate any longer: in this Halloween future, the new limit for technological innovation is No More's Law, where your specs are spelled out and frozen by Congress in a law drafted by standards that were laughable in the last century.

There's more. If we had an average government this wouldn't happen, but we're afflicted with what may be one of the worst governments (executive and legislative) in the history of the Republic. This government allows this sort of thing to happen and to become law.

The bright side? The American public appears to be in a deep coma. It's electroshock therapy like this bill that might wake them up and bring in a reform government. So, Bush et al, "bring it on". Pass more laws like this. Lots more. Americans need some serious voltage applied ...

It's good news for books though.

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 ...