Zimmer on complexity: and evolution - National Geographic

The exceptional Mr. Zimmer has a publicly available NG article on complexity and natural selection: From Fins to Wings @ National Geographic Magazine.

The bigger the palette, the more colors can be painted ...

How closely does Vista track OS X?

David Pogue is writing a book about Vista:

Pogue’s Posts - Technology - New York Times Blog:

.... I copy and pasted the ENTIRE discussion on iCal from my Mac OS X book into the Vista book. After only about 15 minutes of editing, it was an incredibly complete, witty writeup of the new Windows Calendar.

Now that's flattery.

Business method patents will make heroes of hackers

In 1998 a US appeals court made a terrible mistake. They ruled business methods could be patented ...

Patent law is getting tax crazy - Business - International Herald Tribune

As the American tax law gets more and more complicated, lawyers have come up with one more way to make life difficult for taxpayers: Now you may face a patent infringement suit if you use a tax strategy that someone else thought of first.

"I can't even imagine what it will be like in 5 or 10 years," said Dennis Drabkin, a tax lawyer with Jones Day in Dallas, "if anytime a lawyer or accountant gives tax advice, they have to find out if there is a patent on this." He notes that researching patents, and then licensing them, would just make tax compliance more costly.

Drabkin is chairman of an American Bar Association task force on the issue. He said that at one conference where tax strategies were discussed, participants later got a letter warning that using one idea mentioned would be in violation of a patent.

Why would Congress pass a law allowing such a thing? The answer is that it did not. But a U.S. appeals court ruled in 1998 that business methods could be patented, and since then the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued 50 tax- strategy patents, with many more pending.

Congress should reverse the court's mistake -- no matter how loud the screaming. Alas, there's about zero chance of that happening, our polity is far too corrupt.

The combination of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), business process patents, and digital-rights management is going to make us all either miserable or criminal. Hackers will be heroes yet.

Our senator, Norm "Coal" Coleman: serving his future employers

Clearly, Minnesota's GOP senator, Norm Coleman, does not expect to be re-elected. He's already planning for his next job with the coal industry:

Coleman is knee-deep in global-warming fray:

... Sen. Norm Coleman is suggesting that Congress strip California and all other states, along with the federal Environmental Protection Agency, of much of their authority to control carbon dioxide emissions...

For decades California has given America a cleaner environment. It's too big a market to ignore, and it rarely makes business sense to produce one product for California and another for Nebraska. California rules become de facto national rules.

Some folks don't like that. Norm Coleman, a relatively smart member of the amoral wing of the GOP, is likely doing their bidding.

If the GOP retains its lock on power, Coleman will earn his next job, and retain his title as the 'shame of Minnesota'.

Apple and Dell: Profit vs. Share

Daring Fireball, an outspoken Mac blogger, makes a startling comparison:

Daring Fireball: Jackasses of the Week: Gartner Analysts Mark Stahlman and Charles Smulders

.... I’ve said it before and will say it again: the interesting “share” number for Apple’s computer business isn’t their share of the total units sold; it’s their share of the total profits in the PC hardware industry. For example, Apple trails Gateway by three-tenths of a percent in U.S. market share, but Gateway reported a loss of nearly $8 million in net income for its most recent quarter. Apple just reported a quarterly net profit of $546 million. Now, sure, a few hundred million of that comes from iPod sales, but whatever Apple’s profit from Mac sales, it’s a lot better than an $8 million loss.

Or look at Gartner’s beloved Dell. Their PC market share is at least five times higher than Apple’s. And their most recent net income? $502 million. Five times the market share, but less profit. And counting Apple’s iPod profits seems fair to me in this comparison, because Dell’s number includes all that money they’re making from those DJs...

The DJ comment is tongue in cheek of course, but it's a remarkable comparison. Apple's media coverage is not as disproportionate as we might think ...

David Brin on The Manchurian President

I used to joke that Bush was either a deep KGB plant or the pawn of an extraterrestrial civilization seeking to destroy the US. David Brin, a scientist and science fiction writer, appears to take this theory a bit more seriously:

Contrary Brin: The Past Shines Light on the Future

... It is simply impossible to do this much harm to a mighty nation, and have that effect be inadvertent...

... This simply could not have taken place simply as a matter of incompetence. Not even if you throw in ruthless, kleptocratic venality (through crony contracts, for example). That explanation fails because, three layers down from the political appointees, there exists a vast sea of civilian and military civil servants. The most amazing collection of human competence that has ever been assembled!

I never cease to be amazed by how little attention is paid to this level, the vastly knowledgeable and professional US Officer Corps and the collected experts and diplomats and scientists and other skilled workers who fill the vast federal pyramid. For they are key! Under normal circumstances, they would be able to keep things going, at least at a competent-simmering level, even in the face of dingbat idiocy from above!

That is, if it were merely dingbat idiocy!

Oh, but is ANYBODY looking into the possibility that it isn't? We have paid professional paranoids whose JOB it is to look into such possibilities.

I wonder if they are...

Ok. for the record, I don't think GWB is the Manchurian President with a controller rig beneath his jacket, and I don't think David Brin has gone mad. I think David was just a bit excited and overstated his case.

My take is that America was never as robust as many of us had thought, and that we really were more dependent on good governance than we realized. Truly abysmal government has exposed our underlying issues. It didn't really take a vast conspiracy, just persistent incompetence and a flat learning curve.

This is, however, an illuminating example of the state of the American intelligentsia. We're going bonkers watching one of the worst governments in American history dismantle the nation ...

Air Strikes in Iraq: 75,000 dead

Gwynne Dyer, military historian and intellectual eccentric [1], has analyzed the Lancet study (600,000 dead - about 60% of the US civil war dead in a comparable population) of Iraqi post-invasion mortality. He shreds the usual criticisms, but also makes a unique observation:

The most disturbing thing is the breakdown of the causes of death. Over half the deaths -- 56 percent -- are due to gunshot wounds, but 13 percent are due to air strikes. No terrorists do air strikes. No Iraqi government forces do air strikes, either, because they don't have combat aircraft. Air strikes are done by "coalition forces" (i.e. Americans and British), and air strikes in Iraq have killed over 75,000 people since the invasion.

Oscar Wilde once observed that "to lose one parent...may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." To lose 75,000 Iraqis to air strikes looks like carelessness, too.

I have a dim memory that "carelessness" in the context of military operations in a civilian environment can be considered a war crime. I believe that's where Dyer is going with this.

Maybe Kissinger can replace Rumsfeld and the circle will be complete ...

[1] Anyone who displays their publications on the web as .txt files is, by today's standards, eccentric.

Twelve years in the desert - the GOP after 1994

From the glorious victory of '94 to the decaying party of 2006, it's been an even sleazier fall than I'd recalled... (emphasis mine, these stories are coming too fast to track)

Queer and loathing on Capitol Hill | Salon.com

... after he shut down the federal government twice and was cited for ethics violations, Republicans on the eve of the impeachment trial of President Clinton forced Gingrich's resignation. (They had private knowledge: Gingrich promptly abandoned his second wife for the mistress he had maintained on the House payroll for years.)

The next designated speaker, Bob Livingston, resigned almost at once when pornographer Larry Flynt threatened to release tape recordings of Livingston's moaning with a mistress, which Flynt had purchased from the scorned woman...

... DeLay was the Republican Stalin, the ruthless consolidator and centralizer. His "K Street Project" forged an iron triangle of lobbyists, special interests and Republicans whom he believed would rule forever. But DeLay overreached and was indicted for corruption...

.... these and other [GOP staff] aides have been exposed as a network of mostly closeted gays who advanced and protected one another while working for politicians whose careers were propelled by gay bashing...

...Last week, Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio pleaded guilty to bribery, caught in the tangled web of Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff...

... Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, renowned for his conspiracy theories and personal hunt for WMD in Iraq, came under investigation for corrupt practices. His daughter, whose lobbying firm, Solutions North America Inc., worked on behalf of friends of Slobodan Milosevic and a Russian gas company out of her father's congressional office, was raided by the FBI....

... Karl Rove's assistant Susan Ralston (formerly Abramoff's assistant) had resigned for facilitating Abramoff's access to and favors for and from Rove and others, including Ken Mehlman, Republican National Committee chairman and former White House political director. This week another Republican congressman, John Doolittle of California, announced he was turning cooperative witness in the continuing federal investigation.

... Rep. Don Sherwood of Pennsylvania, a "traditional values" Republican who settled out of court in a $5.5 million suit filed by his mistress for attempting to strangle her...

Clinton, surrounded by crazed but hapless enemies, gave them the weapon they needed to destroy him. Gingrich crafted a great victory, only to see his heirs devastate the empire he built. Really, the play writes itself.

Win or lose in November, the GOP is a debauched party.

CNET trashes IE 7

A surprisingly harsh review: Internet Explorer 7 by CNET. I thank heaven I switched the family to Firefox/Safari some time ago. (I'm partial to Camino myself and I may switch the family from Safari to Camino shortly.)

The corpse of habeus

Note to future cyber-archeologist. This was a lot like watching a train wreck. Horrible and fascinating. The nasty part was we were watching from the seats towards the back of the train ...

A Dangerous New Order - New York Times

Once President Bush signed the new law on military tribunals, administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time giving Americans a taste of the new order created by this unconstitutional act.

Within hours, Justice Department lawyers notified the federal courts that they no longer had the authority to hear pending lawsuits filed by attorneys on behalf of inmates of the penal camp at Guantánamo Bay. They cited passages in the bill that suspend the fundamental principle of habeas corpus, making Mr. Bush the first president since the Civil War to take that undemocratic step...

Rove et al have assembled a massive attack strategy to use on any democrats who point out that Bush is taking steps that are necessary, though not sufficient, for the creation of a police state.

It is the great shame of America that today's public would almost certainly fall for Rove's trap. Democrats are thus, by necessity, fearful and silent. To paraphrase a notorious scoundrel, we go to the elections with the citizens we have, not with the citizens we wish we had.

Not the best galaxy to be visiting ...

The Antennae Galaxies/NGC 4038-4039. Looks rough. More here.

Phillip Carter on Iraq: concrete proposals

Philip ("Intel Dump") Carter is a lawyer and veteran who recently volunteered to serve again in Iraq. He's back safely in the US and now has written an article on tactics and strategy for Slate: How to avoid civil war in Iraq

I don't know if Phil wrote this title - I think at 60% of the American civil war's death rate the Iraqi conflict could be called a civil war. However, if Phil did write that Iraq was not yet in a civil war I'd take his word for it. He's a respectable guy.

His Slate article makes concrete recommendations. They come down to investing more money, taking more risks, and planning for a very long methodical counter-insurgency. These are unlikely to be popular proposals...

Don't do rebates

If a rebate is over $100, and if it's offered by a reputable company, and if I would have made the same purchase in the absence of the rebate, then I will sometimes bother to claim my rebate. I don't give much value to rebates when comparing prices; I'll take a $5 price drop over a $50 rebate.

All of which is to explain why I appreciated this post: Rebates to become more of a scam. The author has uncovered a patent application outlining advanced techniques to encourage "breakage" -- the failure of a rebate holder to get their money back. The patent deserves to fail since all of the techniques have been practiced for years, but it's nice to see them documented.

Bottom line - the only reason to bother with rebates is if you enjoy the game of getting paid.

Extra credit question: How does merging 'sick' and 'vacation' time into one time-off pool resemble a rebate scheme?

Winona and why I ended our Britannica subscription

We're a taking family trip to Winona, a town of about 28,000 south of the Twin Cities. Naturally, we review the Winona, Minnesota - Wikipedia entry prior to departure. It's excellent, as usual. We're ready to go exploring.

Coincidentally, I ended our five year old Britannica subscription yesterday. It hasn't been very useful lately -- ever time I've turned to it I've found better answers the net. The final straw was realizing that they still can't render pages correctly in Gecko (Firefox/Camino/Mozilla). That's a sign of rigor mortis. The old EB needs to either go entirely paper, or sell themselves to Google for a song.

Update 10/24/06: See the comments. It looks like the Gecko rendering flaw, which I saw when using Camino, was either an aberration or a Camino bug -- an EB engineer says they actively test using Gecko/Firefox. I believe him/her, so I think my Gecko comments were unfair. I mention in the comments that I've long regretted that EB's management never worked to develop an active community of users, with an open forum, to provide ideas and feedback on the site and its development.

Buddha preserve us - Sunni vs. Shiite

I don't have terribly high opinions of our political leadership, so I was surprised to learn there was room at the bottom.

Jeff Stein, National Security Editor at the Congressional Quarterly, asked a number of law enforcement officers and politicians to distinguish Sunni and Shiite. The results were dismal; I did note however that the examples given were all Republicans. Maybe they just need some time off to study ...