Limits to understanding: evolved circuits, the genetic code, and the mind

DI has a fascinating review of recent research on hardware evolution. The implications are obviously relevant to a recent article in The Economist on the multidimensional/network encoding of genetic information (see also NYT on encoding meaning in topology), and on attempts to understand cognition.

Damn Interesting - On the Origin of Circuits

...Dr. Thompson peered inside his perfect offspring to gain insight into its methods, but what he found inside was baffling. The plucky chip was utilizing only thirty-seven of its one hundred logic gates, and most of them were arranged in a curious collection of feedback loops. Five individual logic cells were functionally disconnected from the rest– with no pathways that would allow them to influence the output– yet when the researcher disabled any one of them the chip lost its ability to discriminate the tones. Furthermore, the final program did not work reliably when it was loaded onto other FPGAs of the same type.

It seems that evolution had not merely selected the best code for the task, it had also advocated those programs which took advantage of the electromagnetic quirks of that specific microchip environment. The five separate logic cells were clearly crucial to the chip's operation, but they were interacting with the main circuitry through some unorthodox method– most likely via the subtle magnetic fields that are created when electrons flow through circuitry, an effect known as magnetic flux. There was also evidence that the circuit was not relying solely on the transistors' absolute ON and OFF positions like a typical chip; it was capitalizing upon analogue shades of gray along with the digital black and white...

I've written before about my teenage experience with modeling the evolved and emergent pneumatic braking system of a 20th century freight train. Evolved systems are characteristically very hard for an evolved mind to interpret. Meaning can be encoded in a baroque and illogical fashion, expressed across multiple continuous and undefined "surfaces" of representation. It may be fundamentally impossible for a mind to truly "understand" it's mechanisms, even if we are able ultimately to create another mind on a much more "reasoned" substrate.

If we eventually discover that the world of physics is fundamentally more like an evolved than a designed system, then we shall mourn the lost innocence of ambitious comprehension ...

Theory of the surge

Phil Carter points to an essay by General Petraeus's (aka the geek general) military anthropologist explaining their counterinsurgency strategy:

Understanding Current Operations in Iraq (SWJ Blog)

.... The enemy is fluid, but the population is fixed. (The enemy is fluid because he has no permanent installations he needs to defend, and can always run away to fight another day. But the population is fixed, because people are tied to their homes, businesses, farms, tribal areas, relatives etc). Therefore—and this is the major change in our strategy this year—protecting and controlling the population is do-able, but destroying the enemy is not. We can drive him off from the population, then introduce local security forces, population control, and economic and political development, and thereby 'hard-wire' the enemy out of the environment, preventing his return. But chasing enemy cells around the countryside is not only a waste of time, it is precisely the sort of action he wants to provoke us into. That’s why AQ cells leaving an area are not the main game—they are a distraction....

If Bush said it was raining, I'd leave my umbrella at home. Petraeus though ...

CV reviews the mutual constraints of cosmology and particle physics

A delightful post for amateur physics junkies: Constraints and Signatures in Particle Cosmology | Cosmic Variance. CV reviews the constraints cosmology places on modeling particle physics, and conversely suggests some cosmologic puzzles that might inspire new particle physics. This one was knew to me:

... There are a number of hints that the highest energy cosmic rays may require exotic new physics for a complete understanding. Above a certain energy (the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff), particles from cosmological distances shouldn’t reach us at all, because they would scatter off the CMB. This has led people to speculate that any ultra high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) may be a signature of new particle physics. Does your theory contain any particles or phenomena that could allow this to happen, and what spectrum of UHECRs should we expect? Some of those topological defects I mentioned above may be an example...

"Topological defects". A rather significant hint I'd say. Mark is referring to:

... Does your theory contain any new topological defects, such as monopoles, domain walls or cosmic strings? If the vacuum structure of your particle physics theory is sufficiently topologically complex, then any symmetry breakings that occur may lead to trapped regions of false vacuum that cannot decay. If so, then many of the constraints mentioned for long-lived elementary particles may apply to these objects. In addition, some topological defects can form networks that redshift more slowly then matter, coming to dominate at a later time in the universe, or can generate a spectrum of gravitational radiation that is in conflict with our detailed measurements of the timing of the millisecond pulsar. If this last constraint is a problem, then it is also possible that the defects unacceptably distort the spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB)...

Keep your eyes open for wandering wrinkles in space-time. Should you happen upon one, email Mark at "once" ...

NYT Massive Evolution Science Section

Science News 6/26/07- New York Times. It will take a while to get through ALL of this. Wow, the NYT is having a great year.

Kristof on Cheney: four must-read articles in WaPo

Kristof directs us to a pair of WaPo articles on the Prince of Darkness:

Digging Into Cheney - Nicholas D. Kristof - Opinion - TimesSelect - New York Times Blog

...Barton Gellman, one of the best reporters around, has a superb and illuminating series in The Washington Post about Dick Cheney. While Cheney himself didn’t talk, lots of people around him did — underscoring Cheney’s central role in the Bush administration’s most demented policies. The series shows that Bush is still the boss — it’s not as if Cheney is secretly pulling the strings — but that Bush tends to operate at a level of general goals...

They key point here is that Bush is the boss. Cheney is doing what Bush wants while keeping Bush's hands "clean". Here's the introduction to the 1st article:

..."Angler," as the Secret Service code-named him, has approached the levers of power obliquely, skirting orderly lines of debate he once enforced as chief of staff to President Gerald R. Ford. He has battled a bureaucracy he saw as hostile, using intimate knowledge of its terrain. He has empowered aides to fight above their rank, taking on roles reserved in other times for a White House counsel or national security adviser. And he has found a ready patron in George W. Bush for edge-of-the-envelope views on executive supremacy that previous presidents did not assert.

Over the past six years, Cheney has shaped his times as no vice president has before. This article begins a four-part series that explores his methods and impact, drawing on interviews with more than 200 men and women who worked for, with or in opposition to Cheney's office. Many of those interviewed recounted events that have not been made public until now, sharing notes,e-mails, personal calendars and other records of their interaction with Cheney and his senior staff. The vice president declined to be interviewed...

From the second article, emphases mine ...

... the "torture memo," as it became widely known, was not Yoo's work alone. In an interview, Yoo said that Addington, as well as Gonzales and deputy White House counsel Timothy E. Flanigan, contributed to the analysis.

The vice president's lawyer advocated what was considered the memo's most radical claim: that the president may authorize any interrogation method, even if it crosses the line into torture. U.S. and treaty laws forbidding any person to "commit torture," that passage stated, "do not apply" to the commander in chief, because Congress "may no more regulate the President's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield."

That same day, Aug. 1, 2002, Yoo signed off on a second secret opinion, the contents of which have never been made public. According to a source with direct knowledge, that opinion approved as lawful a long list of interrogation techniques proposed by the CIA -- including waterboarding, a form of near-drowning that the U.S. government has prosecuted as a war crime since at least 1901. The opinion drew the line against one request: threatening to bury a prisoner alive...

Two more to go. Mandatory reading. Impeach Cheney.

Rahm Emanuel is the spine of the Democratic party - defunding Cheney

Wonderful 

Calling Cheney's Bluff, The Nation: If The VP's Office Really Isn't In The Executive Branch, Then Don't Fund It - CBS News

llinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel has come up with the right response to Dick Cheney's attempt to suggest that the Office of the Vice President is not part of the executive branch.

The House Democratic Caucus chairman wants to take the Cheney at his word. Cheney says his office is "not an entity within the executive branch," so Emanuel wants to take away the tens of millions of dollars that are allocated to the White House to maintain it.

... Cheney and his staff have refused for five years to file reports that are required as part of the oversight process. Why? Because the vice president — that's the vice president — claims he is not exactly a member of the executive branch.

So what is Cheney? Because the vice president serves in the frequently ceremonial position of president of the Senate, Cheney's office now claims that he is a member of the legislative branch — and thus unburdened by any responsibility to cooperate with the Archives.

... O.K., says Emanuel.

If Cheney's a member of the legislative branch, the Democratic Caucus chair suggests, the vice president won't need all the money that currently goes to pay for his executive office, extensive staff and that secure undisclosed location that is so often his haunt. So Emanuel plans this week to offer an amendment to a spending bill that would defund the Office of the Vice President...

... "This amendment will ensure that the vice president's funding is consistent with his legal arguments," say Emanuel, a former aide to President Clinton who, like Cheney, has served in both the legislative and executive branches...

Cheney is one of the reasons I have no interest at this time in impeaching Bush. Remember, Agnew went before Nixon ...

Tires - I think we're past the tip of the iceberg now...

I think we're moving past the "tip of the iceberg" into -- Houston, we have a problem ... (Note, it's Barboza again. Give the man a Pulitzer please.) Emphases mine. Note that the US import operation involved in this employs seven people and has no assets to pursue. Brand names are: "Westlake, Compass, Telluride and YKS".

Chinese Company Denies Defect in Recalled Tires - New York Times
By DAVID BARBOZA

SHANGHAI, June 26 — A day after regulators in the United States ordered the recall of over 450,000 tires because of potential hazards, the Chinese manufacturer denied Tuesday that they are defective, saying the claims may be fabricated.

But the problem tires, which were sold for use on vans, sports utility vehicles and pickup trucks, have already been linked to at least two deaths in the United States, possibly because of a missing “gum strip,” which could allow the tire treads to separate and fall apart.

Tread separation is the defect that led Firestone in 2000 to undertake one of the largest tire recalls ever in the United States, involving millions of tires.

The Chinese company that produced the tires, the Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Company, disputed the allegations Tuesday and hinted that the recall might be an effort by foreign competitors to hamper the company’s exports to the United States...

...The recall is the latest incident involving problem products entering the American market from China, and another case involving allegations that a Chinese manufacturer cut corners and altered its production process after winning a large supply contract.

For several months, the United States government has issued warnings and nationwide recalls involving everything from contaminated pet food and toxic toothpaste to popular toys coated with lead paint, all bearing the label, “Made in China.” ..

..“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Oded Shenkar, a professor of management at Ohio State University and author of “The Chinese Century,” referring to the spate of recalls and problem products from China. “We’re going to see more and more problems with Chinese products because there’s inadequate oversight in the manufacturing process. I’ve even heard about counterfeit car brakes being made there.”...

... On Monday, federal officials in Washington told a tiny New Jersey importer, which has just seven employees, to recall about 450,000 radial tires because some tires were missing a safety feature that prevented tire tread separation.

But the company, Foreign Tire Sales of Union, N.J., has asked the federal government for help, saying it does not have enough money to pay for the recall.

Officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, however, insist that the importer has the responsibility for the recall, and one official said the agency was “outraged” that the tire distributor had waited nearly two years before informing regulators of suspicions about tire defects.

The recall effort comes after a lawsuit was filed in early May against Foreign Tire Sales, blaming the company for an August 2006 accident that killed two people in Pennsylvania and left two others injured, one severely.

Lawyers who filed the suit said Foreign Tire Sales had contracted with Zhongce in 2000 and that the company had received reports of problem tires as early as 2005...

...Indeed, since Firestone’s vast recall in 2000, the world’s biggest tire makers have rushed into China to build new plants or to team up with Chinese tire makers, partly because of the lower labor costs here but also because of this country’s soaring demand for automobiles.

Zhongce was once a state-owned company that in the 1950s made rubber shoe soles.

In 2006, the company had about 8,000 employees and nearly $1 billion in sales and had signed deals to supply or team up with some of the world’s biggest tire makers, including Goodyear, Yokohama and Cooper Tire, according to company officials.

The American recall, however, involves allegations that experts here say point to a common problem: Chinese manufacturers who win a contract after agreeing to produce a product following certain guidelines or specifications and then, often for cost-saving reasons, switch to a cheaper ingredient or a process that lowers costs.

Almost all the other recalls involve a similar allegation — a switch to cheaper ingredients.

In this case, a tiny New Jersey distributor sold the problem tires under the brands Westlake, Compass, Telluride and YKS.

A lawyer for Foreign Tire Sales said Monday that Zhongce produced tires for at least six other distributors in the United States and that at times it omitted gum strips from its tires.

There are no assets to go after in this case and we can't pursue Zhongce in court. I think we're left with nothing now but US federal legislation. Maybe we need to require anyone exporting to the US to have some form of "insurance" so there are assets to pursue, thereby pushing the quality issues onto the insurance and reinsurance industries.

I read a lot of economics blogs, including DeLong, and they've been very quiet about this. I'm disappointed.

Netflix alert: the top 1000 films

If we can ever wrest the Netflix list away from the children, we might actually get to use this: The top 1000 films by The Guardian.

Murdoch and Nielsen: how the world works

Rupert Murdoch, a famously ruthless man of vast ambition but amorphous ideology, is likely going to buy the Wall Street Journal. He can't make the editorial pages any more absurd, so the primary concern is that he'll bias the news coverage, which has historically been excellent. I expect he'll do that by gradually eliminating all who disagree with him, and retaining those who's thinking is compatible with his. It's claimed that he did something similar with the Times of London. Assuming he doesn't also buy the New York Times (they ought to worry) this is probably good news for them.

In the spirit of the pending acquisition, the NYT has reviewed Rupert's record. The story fits with what I've read of him over the years, with one significant exception. Five journalists are writing, and nobody mentions Murdoch and China. Murdoch changed the way his properties discussed China in order to obtain entry to the world's most important marketplace. The fact that the NYT never mentioned this little episode is a wee bit scary. Did some editor cut it out? Why?

Aside from that rather large exception, the story is a familiar one. Murdoch adjusts his media focus to whoever is in power, as long as he feels that person can be bought. So either Hilary Clinton or Mitt Romney would be quite acceptable, but John Edwards is unthinkable.

The most interesting story in the piece is the attack on the Nielson research operation (emphases mine). It has a few interesting lessons, not all of them obvious. Emphases mine.

Murdoch Reaches Out for Even More - New York Times

... In early 2004, an alarm went off at the News Corporation headquarters.

Nielsen Media Research was preparing to switch to a more sophisticated technology to calculate ratings that television stations use to set advertising rates for local programming. Results of a trial run showed sharp drops in ratings for shows carried on stations owned by the News Corporation, particularly those aimed at minority viewers.

With millions of dollars at stake, Mr. Murdoch sprang into action. He hired the Glover Park Group, a consulting firm with deep ties to the Clinton administration, to run a grass-roots ground war. Charging that the system was faulty and that it undercounted minorities, the firm started an extensive advertising campaign intended to delay the rollout of the new technology and staged protests around the country that drew such unlikely allies as the Rev. Al Sharpton. Among the Democrats who wrote to Nielsen opposing the new system was Mrs. Clinton.

The New York Post [jf: a premier Murdoch property] pursued the story, running news headlines like “Nailing Nielsen” and routinely failing to mention its parent company’s interest in the outcome.

The resulting two-year campaign was unusually brazen, even by Beltway standards. Protesters massed outside Nielsen offices in New York. The atmosphere grew so charged that Nielsen’s chief, Susan Whiting, hired a personal bodyguard and the company strengthened security at its headquarters, according to Nielsen officials.

At one point, Ms. Whiting publicly accused Mr. Chernin and Mr. Murdoch’s son Lachlan of threatening to do “everything possible to discredit you and the company in Washington” if she did not back down. Mr. Chernin and Mr. Murdoch publicly denied making the threat.

But the News Corporation turned to Republican allies to put pressure on Nielsen. Senator Conrad Burns, a Montana Republican who was chairman of the Commerce Committee’s communications subcommittee, and Representative Vito J. Fossella, a New York Republican, introduced legislation that threatened Nielsen with government oversight...

...Political contributions flowed to nearly all the legislation’s supporters. In 2005, the year the legislation was introduced, records show that the bill’s 29 sponsors and co-sponsors together received at least $144,650 in donations from the News Corporation’s political action committees and lobbyists.

Ultimately, the dispute was settled quietly. Mr. Murdoch succeeded in keeping the old rating system in place for several months in the three top markets, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Those months included the sweeps period, when advertising rates are set...

Interesting lesson one: If you believe the NYT story, the attack didn't achieve all that much. Murdoch took millions from advertiser who's message was probably wasted, but the system, supposedly changed anyway. So did Murdoch win or not? Was the attack all that profitable, or did it mostly produce new enemies?

Interesting lesson two: Ok, we know this one. Hilary is well integrated into the established order.

Interesting lesson three: The unasked questions are often the most interesting questions. While all this was going on, did anyone detect Murdoch's hand in the operation? Did NYT journalists twig to why the New York Post was so keen to right about Nielsen's change? Did they write about it? How about some commentary from NYP insiders? What are the mechanics of this kind of operation at the newsroom level?

Murdoch is the present and future of media control. If Americans care they can do something about it, but I think Americans, like everyone else, are overwhelmed by the complexity of the emerging world.

Message in a bottle: Michael Cinnamon, phone home

Because my brother was lost in Whistler, BC five years ago (July 12, 2002) I occasionally receive emails about other lost people. Recently I got one about a young man who's last known address was also in Whistler in 2002, though in this case, unlike Brian it seems the gentleman may have vanished deliberately.

It's hard to find someone who doesn't want to be found. Perhaps he has good reasons to stay away. It occurred to me however, that Michael Shawn Cinnamon might occasionally Google on his own name. It's not that common a name, there were no hits before I wrote this.

Now, if he Googles on his name, he'll find this "message in a bottle". He might even choose to learn why his Aunt Phyllis from Kelowna BC is looking for him now.

Update: As of 6/27/07: a search on "Michael Cinnamon" finds this post first. So the message has been sent.

Tips for talking to journalists

A few times in my life, I've done interviews for radio or video journalists. Even though Kevin Paidain thinks his tips are "rudimentary", I didn't know them. I think they work for any context, not just a science interview. Here's an excerpt (emphases mine):

The Loom : Madam Speaker, I Yield My Remaining Time to the Paleontologist from the Great State of California

... Scientists can "control" an interview better if they keep things to a few oft-repeated points, speak in plain English with colorful (but not distorting) language and use analogies and metaphors, and be upbeat. Speak in reasonably short sound bites. (Randy Olson of Flock of Dodos has a good list on this.) In a film interview, don't necessarily answer the question asked if it is not a good one (they seldom play the question in the film) but rather say what you want to say that's more or less on the topic. That actually helps the interviewer more. Repeat as necessary until the point is made, and made effectively. You might say something in a film interview but not very well, so they won't use it. Do it again. They'll wait.

Some rules: always say "off the record" in advance. Be clear when you're going back on the record. Ask in advance to check quotes (this is reasonable) but it is not reasonable to ask to edit the article. Remember that the article is what the reporter says, not what the scientist says, and yes, they do have license to interpret. It's kosher to ask what the angle of the story is early in the game, so you don't waste time explaining stuff that the reporter doesn't need (they usually don't cut you off)...

Personally I'd also recommend to write down what your key points are in advance - especially for a phone interview. It's handy to have a reference.

Choose your poison: HIV or something else

Nonbiologists like me may read this Zimmer article with mouth firmly open ...

The Loom : Pleistocene Medicine for Battling HIV

...It turns out that human TRIM5-alpha does an excellent job of wiping out this ancestral virus. Its superior performance depends on a short bit of one of the virus's genes--a bit that shows signs of having experienced strong natural selection in our hominid ancestors. But evolving a strong resistance to PtERV1 meant giving up resistance to HIV. The viruses seem to force primates to make an evolutionary choice: defend against one or the other, but not both. In our ancestors, the scientists argue, TRIM5-alpha evolved into a powerful weapon against PtERV1--so powerful that we carry no trace of the virus in our genomes. But it left us with little protection against HIV

In order to test the modern reponse to the "ancestral virus" researchers had to resurrect it from relics buried in the human genome. The practice is kind of a cross between archeology and ... ummm ... omnipotence. We may not have jet packs or sentient AIs (as far as we know, yet), but our biology is well beyond what science fiction writers of the 1960s expected ...

China: totalitarian anarchy?

The NYT has been doing an excellent job following up on China's flurry of quality and fraud issues, most recently covering the "Lead Thomas" news. Today David Barboza gives us some insight on what's going on behind the scenes after a visit to Thomas's home -- RC2, the largest toy manufacturing facility in the world ...

David Barboza - My Time as a Hostage - New York Times

AS an American journalist based in China, I knew there was a good chance that at some poozaint I’d be detained for pursuing a story. I just never thought I’d be held hostage by a toy factory.

That’s what happened last Monday, when for nine hours I was held, along with a translator and a photographer, by the suppliers of the popular Thomas & Friends toy rail sets.

“You’ve intruded on our property,” one factory boss shouted at me. “Tell me, what exactly is the purpose of this visit?” When I answered that I had come to meet the maker of a toy that had recently been recalled in the United States because it contained lead paint, he suggested I was really a commercial spy intent on stealing the secrets to the factory’s toy manufacturing process.

“How do I know you’re really from The New York Times?” he said. “Anyone can fake a name card.”

Thus began our interrogation, which was followed by hours of negotiations, the partial closing of the factory complex and the arrival of several police cars, a handful of helmet-wearing security officers and some government officials, all trying to free an American journalist and his colleagues from a toy factory.

Factory bosses, I would discover, can overrule the police, and Chinese government officials are not as powerful as you might suspect in a country addicted to foreign investment...

For American journalists, there’s a tradition of showing up at a crime scene, or visiting a place that has made news. But in China, where press freedoms are weak, such visits can be dangerous.

Last year, a young man working for a Chinese newspaper was beaten to death after he tried to meet the owners of an illegal coal mine. Local officials later insisted he was trying to extort money.

My colleagues at The Times have been detained several times. And one of our Chinese research assistants is now serving a three-year prison term for fraud. He originally had been accused of passing state secrets to The Times, a charge this paper has denied.

.... Many experts have told me that one of the most serious problems in China is that the government lacks the power to control the nation’s Wild West entrepreneurs, deal makers and connected factory owners.

Bribery is rampant, and government corruption widespread. Just a few weeks ago, the top food and drug regulator was sentenced to death for taking huge bribes from pharmaceutical companies. But it’s not clear that strong messages like that will stop the anarchy.

“China effectively has no oversight over anything,” said Oded Shenkar, a business professor at Ohio State University and author of “The Chinese Century: The Rising Chinese Economy and Its Impact on the Global Economy, the Balance of Power and Your Job.”

“People have this idea they are Big Brother and everyone is under watch,” Mr. Shenkar said. “But this is not China. In China, local authorities often turn a blind eye to problems because maybe they’re invested in it.”

Indeed, the impotence of local officials was clear to me from my visit to the RC2 Industrial Park in the city of Dongguan, which is thought to be the largest toy manufacturing center in the world.

The private plant is the main supplier to the RC2 Corporation, an Illinois company. And the Hong Kong or Chinese entrepreneurs who run the facility seemed to hold great sway over the government.

We had no problem entering the complex or looking around until we met “Mr. Zhong,” a rough-looking factory complex supervisor. He scolded us for entering the grounds and taking photographs, and then invited us to a small villa on the campus, a stylish house filled with luxurious rooms, black leather chairs, a giant-screen TV, a huge stock of Cuban cigars, even a massage parlor.

This would be our prison. (Business correspondents are a more fortunate breed than war reporters.) Mr. Zhong offered an interview and a tour. But he later changed his mind and issued an ultimatum: hand over the pictures or we call the police.

Confident we had signed in properly with the security guards, who had allowed us onto the campus, we opted for the police. After over an hour, the police failed to show up, and we tried to leave, only to be nearly tackled by the factory’s ragtag army of security officers.

My translator then called the police.

The scene was farcical. We were locked inside the factory gate, surrounded by 16 security guards and 4 or 5 factory bosses. All trucks trying to bring supplies in or out of the complex were rerouted. Inside, large crowds of factory workers in blue uniforms were gawking. A crowd had also gathered outside the gates.

The police arrived an hour later, listened to both sides and then stood around. More police officers came. And more police officers stood around. It was clear they had no power to intervene.

So we called government officials, who suggested other government officials, who offered up more.

Finally, after hours of waiting, a higher-level government official arrived to settle the dispute.

He was a friendly man who admitted that he could not release us, that he didn’t have the power. We should negotiate, he said. For the next five hours, he shuttled between rooms in the villa trying to negotiate a settlement. There were shouting matches. There were demands that pictures be turned over.

After hours of squabbling, Mr. Zhong demanded we write a confession saying we had trespassed. He settled for a few sentences explaining why I had come and that I had not asked his permission to take any pictures.

The fight between government and factory during our detainment seemed to underscore the dysfunctional relationship the Chinese government has with industry.

In the endless back and forth, it was apparent that the government I often imagined as being all powerful and all seeing could be powerless and conflicted when it came to local businessmen and factory owners.

When we were released early Tuesday from a local police station, where we were sent to fill out a report, we noticed that while our translator was giving an account of the day to the police, the factory bosses were laughing and dining in another room, making the nexus of power in these parts and in this age ever more clear.

I'm visiting my parents in Montreal, and as we drove out to lunch my father told me how things worked in the 40s. Then, if you were stopped by the underpaid and undertrained provincial police, you'd offer the officer a cigarette (everyone smoked), with $5 tucked in the pack. A payment of $500 would get anyone a job on the police force - no questions asked.

Ten years earlier, in the 1930s, the Chicago business scene would have been very familiar to Mr. Zhong. Twenty years earlier Sinclair Lewis described Chinese-style factory life and practices in the US.

Times change. Only an idiot would try to bribe a Quebec provincial police officer today. It might work, or it might get you arrested. That's enough uncertainty to ensure no-one will try. (On the other hand, Bill Clintons million dollar speeches prove that bribery has not vanished, it's just become more refined.) China's changing fast, maybe the rule of law will emerge there in twenty years rather than fifty years.

In the meantime it seems easiest to think of China as 1930 Chicago with an added dash of totalitarian tradition. That means we shouldn't waste our time trying to get China to enforce food safety laws. Instead, we should make American importers legally liable for whatever problems are found, including criminal liability where that applies. That kind of pressure will force change all the way down the supply chain.

The missing Google solution: no file sharing

I make fairly frequent use of Google Page Creator (still a "lab" product), Google Documents, and, indeed, most of what Google produces including their photo sharing service. I even have 3 or 4 (it's easy to lose count) Google app domains including our family domain. I've been a Google fan since the first few weeks they had a web presence, back when everyone else I knew was still using Alta Vista (yes, it still exists).

Yeah, I 'm a fan. Google is awesome, the paradigmatic (hey, it's a good word) 21st century company. If they ever open an R&D office in the Twin Cities I'll send in my resume -- just so I can say I tried. There are some things, however, that Google has steered clear of. It's this kind of omission, the "dog that didn't bark in the night"omission, that catches my attention.

Google doesn't provide a quality service for uploading files to share on the web. Yahoo xdrive doesn't either. The old webdav services I used to use, that did provide URL (http port 80) access have faded away.

Sure, Google Pages ("lab" supposedly, but it's part of the free Google Apps service) lets you upload a file, but it doesn't scale. You can't rename a file once its been uploaded, there's no metadata save name and size, there's no real browser -- it's such a barebones solution that it underscores how reluctant they are to provide a web accessible file store.

Look at Google Apps Premier edition. Sure there's no presentation software, but that's on the way. More intriguingly, there's no file server.

So why won't Google, or xdrive, provide a file server solution with a web accessible addresses? It can't simply be fear of copyright violation -- Google owns YouTube! I wish someone better connected than I am would notice this and track it down a bit ...

Whistling past the cell phone graveyard

I expect iPhone 1.0 to induce massive gnashing of teeth among the foolish early adopters. Apple has the creativity gene, not the quality gene. If I buy one, it won't be before November -- and I can't buy one ever if there isn't a reasonably reliable solution for bidirectional synchronization of tasks, contacts, and calendars with Outlook (via .Mac or gCal would be ok - I expect Google will give us this even if Apple won't).

On the other hand, I think the cell phone industry will never be the same again after June 29th. The current crop of cell phones are, for geeks like me, a travesty. The closest thing to acceptable is the senescent and absurdly expensive Treo, now being placed on life support. So it's interesting to watch the reactions of industry insiders:

AT&T Hoping the iPhone Has Coattails - New York Times

...Mr. Lanman said Verizon already had at least 18 music-capable phones. In the next few weeks, he said, it plans to introduce a new model of its Chocolate phones that allows not just downloading of songs over the air but also transferring music from computers.

Mr. Lanman said he was not worried that AT&T would steal customers because Verizon’s network infrastructure is superior and offers better connection coverage and stability. “For Apple, I think the big risk is the AT&T network.”...

... .Edward Snyder, an equity analyst with Charter Equity Research, said that many people would be turned off by the price; older customers who can afford it, he said, will not care about all the fancy features of the iPhone, while younger ones who are excited about the device will not like the cost.

Over all, Mr. Snyder said, the iPhone will appeal to maybe 3 percent to 5 percent of wireless phone users. And he said he was skeptical that it would work as well as advertised.

“Implementing a cellphone is absolutely more difficult than anything Apple’s done to date,” he said, noting that, in particular, the phones might have trouble delivering consistently good voice communications and that the devices could suffer overall reliability problems. “Go out and buy an iPod and hold it at waist level and drop it. That’s the end of the iPod.”

“I don’t think Apple’s going to be a big player in this at all.”...

... Bill Plummer, vice president of Nokia’s multimedia group in North America, disagreed with the assertion that the iPhone would bring fundamental change to the market. He said Nokia already sold high-end phones with a wide range of functions, including the N95, which has a five-megapixel camera and a hard drive to store and play music. The phone works on either the AT&T or T-Mobile network and sells for $749.

The iPhone, he argued “is an evolution of the status quo.”...

Mr. Lanman's comments are probably the smartest. He's clearly concerned but careful about what he says -- but he's omitting the DRM problem. Downloaded music to Chocolate phones will all be DRMd; I wonder how well CD ripping works for the Chocolates, and whether they can plan non-DRMd AAC. If they can't then Verizon is pretty dumb. (AAC is not an Apple technology; neither of the "A"s stand for "Apple".)

Mr. Snyder wasn't doing too badly until he got to the part about dropping an iPod. You can drop a Nano from a rooftop and it will keep working - even if the case cracks. He's confusing a hard drive iPod with a flash iPod. I'll give him a little credit because the iPhone looks extremely fragile (titanium clamshell is more my style), but he botched this one.

Mr. Plummer's claim that the iPhone is "an evolution of the status quo" is hilarious.

In case we didn't know it already, the iPhone is clearly terrifying the cellular industry. If it does nothing else, it's already a modest success.

Update 6/26/07: Daring Fireball has a more entertaining summary of these interviews.