So I have been getting progressively more and more fed up with the state of the City Council in my lovely seaside town of Salem. I live in Ward 5 - and when long-time Councillor Matt Veno stepped down in 2009 he had two people vie to replace him. Both were local attorneys, Jerry Taché and the other John Ronan. John lives down the street from me, and seemed like a fairly reasonable fellow (and he is a nice guy - I don't have any personal animosity towards him), so I voted for him. Most did - he won the ward handily.
Over the next year, it started to become obvious that we weren't getting what I'd voted for. As Councillor, John started working with a group that became crassly obstructionist, and demonstrated what in my view is a clear misunderstanding of the Council's role and a shortsighted view of the City's finances. Read the Salem News' archives and Real_World's blog for more background. As the year began, I started hoping that we'd have a challenger emerge in Ward 5 for Ronan. Once the filing period began, I was disappointed to see that wasn't the case. As we got closer to the filing deadline, two things became obvious:
- There wasn't anybody interested in running
- There was also a lot of people sharing my sentiments
So after the proverbial "discussing with family", we got a candidate. Me. I went in on Tuesday after the holiday weekend and filed paperwork for the race, and Jane's planning to bring it in tomorrow. Getting signatures isn't that hard, it turns out, when people care.
Some people run for offices like this to make connections. Some do it to get lined up for bigger things later. That's not my plan. I'm doing it because City Council seems to have gone off the rails again (this happens on occasion in this and many other towns) and if nobody else is game then I may as well do it. Win or lose, I don't see myself trying for anything else down the road. Remember, I own an IT company in my real life. Two thankless jobs are enough!
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
My technical summer
I finally had a vacation a couple of weeks ago - we spent 10 days on the Vineyard. Delightful, and I miss the crap out of the place the second I drive onto the ferry to leave and look out at the harbor behind me as the boat pulls away from the dock. Business has been respectable, though not fantastic. New clients are coming on board pretty regularly and there are some opportunities that seem to be available that may be able to get us back in growth mode. Which would be nice.
Some of those are due to the upcoming Summer of Technology that I can look forward to. All I can say right now about iOS 5 is that I'm running the first beta on my iPad 2, and I'm expecting Beta 2 this week. Pesky NDAs. It is not yet at the point where I will trust my iPhone to it - I depend far too much on my iPhone whereas the iPad is a luxury.
But when iOS 5 arrives in the next few months it'll be awesome.
The next iPhone itself will be due in late August/early September. Maybe in conjunction with the 2011 iPods, but more likely a separate announcement. I'm expecting the iPhone 5 to be more of an "iPhone 4S", similar to how the iPhone 3GS kept the form factor of the 3 but beefed up the underlying specs. Well, I'm figuring on a dual-core A5 chip, possibly more RAM (768MB or 1GB, up from 512MB), a better imaging chip, a little better battery life, and not much else. It'll probably be a single phone for both GSM and CDMA networks, and will likely support VoRA on CDMA.
Next year will be the super-duper iPhone LTE. When both major US carriers are ready to support it and the chipsets are more mature.
Then, sometime between tomorrow and a month from now we can expect Apple to release new Mac minis (with i5 processors and Thunderbolt), new MacBook Airs (with i5 low-voltage processors and Thunderbolt), and new Mac Pros (with newer Xeons, Thunderbolt, and a redesigned chassis that should support rackmounting).
The only question to me is whether they ship pre-Lion or post-Lion. I'm hoping for pre-Lion as that way I'll have a higher adoption rate early. A lot of my clients aren't ready for Lion and are holding off on some new purchases waiting for upgraded models - they'll buy sooner if the new systems ship with Snow Leopard.
Windows has almost become an afterthought to the business - we support it but don't really actively seek new clients on the platform, and I can't remember the last Exchange server I installed from scratch (I've upgraded a couple). Windows 7 doesn't suck, but it's not enough to keep people who want to switch to Apple from making the leap.
And a lot of them do.
So I think I've pretty much got my time all booked out through September now, just on Apple's new kit. I haven't even had time to buy any more Bluetooth headsets. Still relying mainly on my Jawbone Era.
Some of those are due to the upcoming Summer of Technology that I can look forward to. All I can say right now about iOS 5 is that I'm running the first beta on my iPad 2, and I'm expecting Beta 2 this week. Pesky NDAs. It is not yet at the point where I will trust my iPhone to it - I depend far too much on my iPhone whereas the iPad is a luxury.
But when iOS 5 arrives in the next few months it'll be awesome.
The next iPhone itself will be due in late August/early September. Maybe in conjunction with the 2011 iPods, but more likely a separate announcement. I'm expecting the iPhone 5 to be more of an "iPhone 4S", similar to how the iPhone 3GS kept the form factor of the 3 but beefed up the underlying specs. Well, I'm figuring on a dual-core A5 chip, possibly more RAM (768MB or 1GB, up from 512MB), a better imaging chip, a little better battery life, and not much else. It'll probably be a single phone for both GSM and CDMA networks, and will likely support VoRA on CDMA.
Next year will be the super-duper iPhone LTE. When both major US carriers are ready to support it and the chipsets are more mature.
Then, sometime between tomorrow and a month from now we can expect Apple to release new Mac minis (with i5 processors and Thunderbolt), new MacBook Airs (with i5 low-voltage processors and Thunderbolt), and new Mac Pros (with newer Xeons, Thunderbolt, and a redesigned chassis that should support rackmounting).
The only question to me is whether they ship pre-Lion or post-Lion. I'm hoping for pre-Lion as that way I'll have a higher adoption rate early. A lot of my clients aren't ready for Lion and are holding off on some new purchases waiting for upgraded models - they'll buy sooner if the new systems ship with Snow Leopard.
Windows has almost become an afterthought to the business - we support it but don't really actively seek new clients on the platform, and I can't remember the last Exchange server I installed from scratch (I've upgraded a couple). Windows 7 doesn't suck, but it's not enough to keep people who want to switch to Apple from making the leap.
And a lot of them do.
So I think I've pretty much got my time all booked out through September now, just on Apple's new kit. I haven't even had time to buy any more Bluetooth headsets. Still relying mainly on my Jawbone Era.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Fixing the deficit (for grown-ups)
Just as a follow-up, I re-did the New York Times' "You Fix the Budget" interactive puzzle this morning, just to re-remind myself of how to be responsible. Here are my choices: I have a couple of other ideas that would likely take care of the rest of the long-term issue as well.
Domestic Programs/Foreign Aid
- Cut foreign aid in half
- Eliminate farm subsidies
- Reduce the number of contractors
This first batch of cuts isn't huge, but it sets a tone. Virtually no industry in this country should be subsidized, we don't need to spend a lot of money bribing other nations, and we also shouldn't employ contractors to do what we can do with employees. I'd like to make some other cuts here that aren't listed as options, too.
Military
- Reduce nuclear arsenal and space spending
- Reduce military to pre-Iraq War size, reduce European and Asian troops
- Reduce Navy and Air Force fleets
- Cancel or delay weapons programs
- Reduce noncombat military compensation and overhead
- Cut troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to 30,000 by 2013
These seem like enormous cuts, but it's time to get out of our entanglements overseas. We have by far the biggest, most powerful, and most expensive military on Earth. We don't need that much. And we've effectively eliminated Al-Qaeda as a major threat, we don't need to worry nearly so much about the remaining Taliban.
Health Care
- Enact medical malpractice reform
- Increase Medicare eligibility age to 68
Malpractice reform is a good idea in general and that area of law is abuse-prone. It won't make a big difference by itself but conservatives want it badly and it's good to give it to them. Barring single-payer insurance, we should up the Medicare eligibility as long as the present system still stands.
Social Security
- Raise the Social Security retirement age to 68
- Reduce Social Security benefits for those with high incomes
- Tighten eligibility for disability
Again, people live and work longer, so delaying full benefits another year is fine. Cutting benefits a little for high-income people is harmless, and making it more difficult to claim disability is also a win. We've had a lot of creep in disability over the years.
Existing Taxes
- Estate Taxes: President Obama's proposal
- Investment Taxes: Return rates to Clinton-era levels
- Bush Tax Cuts: Allow expiration for income above $250,000 a year
- Payroll tax: Subject some incomes above $106,000 to tax
All reasonable ways to get revenue while still keeping taxes lower than they were early last decade. I'd go further on the payroll tax, though, and apply it to all income instead of the ceiling it'd be targeted for here.
New Taxes
- Eliminate loopholes, but keep taxes slightly higher
- Reduce mortgage deduction and others for high-income households
Yes, I'd "soak the rich" comparatively speaking. Film at 11.
Altogether, my proposal based on the puzzle takes us from a $418 billion expected deficit in 2015 to a $604 billion surplus, and reduces the structural deficit by 2030 from $1.245 trillion to $62 billion. On top of that, I'd propose a massive nationalization of basic health care, with private insurers free to sell supplemental and enhanced coverage on top of that. That would likely clear up the remainder of the long-term deficit and free up money that currently is lost to health care inefficiency.
What's your plan? I know what most of the Salem News commenters would say, and it's not pretty.
Domestic Programs/Foreign Aid
- Cut foreign aid in half
- Eliminate farm subsidies
- Reduce the number of contractors
This first batch of cuts isn't huge, but it sets a tone. Virtually no industry in this country should be subsidized, we don't need to spend a lot of money bribing other nations, and we also shouldn't employ contractors to do what we can do with employees. I'd like to make some other cuts here that aren't listed as options, too.
Military
- Reduce nuclear arsenal and space spending
- Reduce military to pre-Iraq War size, reduce European and Asian troops
- Reduce Navy and Air Force fleets
- Cancel or delay weapons programs
- Reduce noncombat military compensation and overhead
- Cut troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to 30,000 by 2013
These seem like enormous cuts, but it's time to get out of our entanglements overseas. We have by far the biggest, most powerful, and most expensive military on Earth. We don't need that much. And we've effectively eliminated Al-Qaeda as a major threat, we don't need to worry nearly so much about the remaining Taliban.
Health Care
- Enact medical malpractice reform
- Increase Medicare eligibility age to 68
Malpractice reform is a good idea in general and that area of law is abuse-prone. It won't make a big difference by itself but conservatives want it badly and it's good to give it to them. Barring single-payer insurance, we should up the Medicare eligibility as long as the present system still stands.
Social Security
- Raise the Social Security retirement age to 68
- Reduce Social Security benefits for those with high incomes
- Tighten eligibility for disability
Again, people live and work longer, so delaying full benefits another year is fine. Cutting benefits a little for high-income people is harmless, and making it more difficult to claim disability is also a win. We've had a lot of creep in disability over the years.
Existing Taxes
- Estate Taxes: President Obama's proposal
- Investment Taxes: Return rates to Clinton-era levels
- Bush Tax Cuts: Allow expiration for income above $250,000 a year
- Payroll tax: Subject some incomes above $106,000 to tax
All reasonable ways to get revenue while still keeping taxes lower than they were early last decade. I'd go further on the payroll tax, though, and apply it to all income instead of the ceiling it'd be targeted for here.
New Taxes
- Eliminate loopholes, but keep taxes slightly higher
- Reduce mortgage deduction and others for high-income households
Yes, I'd "soak the rich" comparatively speaking. Film at 11.
Altogether, my proposal based on the puzzle takes us from a $418 billion expected deficit in 2015 to a $604 billion surplus, and reduces the structural deficit by 2030 from $1.245 trillion to $62 billion. On top of that, I'd propose a massive nationalization of basic health care, with private insurers free to sell supplemental and enhanced coverage on top of that. That would likely clear up the remainder of the long-term deficit and free up money that currently is lost to health care inefficiency.
What's your plan? I know what most of the Salem News commenters would say, and it's not pretty.
Our latest local lunacy
Our beloved local newspaper, The Salem News, is pretty reliably right-wing in the editorial section. And beloved libertarian crank Barbara Anderson is one of our most reliably nutty contributors. Sparring with her was fun back in the day when you could comment anonymously on the boards there, but since they went to a "Real Names Only" policy I've stayed away (as have the vast majority of posters). Here's her latest drivel - be entertained by the comments there as well:
http://goo.gl/AnN2Y
Short version is this: Any Republican is better than what we've got. Really? One poster in the comments makes plenty of salient points, only to get accused of racism for not mentioning Herman (who?) Cain as a serious contender. Gee, surprised? And then Robin Douglas does a great job of summarizing the real Obama resume/record, only to be greeted with the all caps "NONE OF WHICH QUALIFIED HIM FOR THE PRESIDENCY". Really? Plenty of presidents (including our last one) got the job with fewer achievements in the real world. But in the end, here's what finds Obama qualified:
- He was elected to the Presidency by a majority of voters across the nation. Period. The American people have already held forth on his qualifications, and by electing him they found his qualifications acceptable. Period. Next years' election will hold judgement on his accomplishments in the office, not his qualifications for it. That argument is over. He was elected. Move on, mouth-breathers.
Newsflash: We are digging out of a recession still. The economy has improved but is not yet back where it was in 2007 and prior. We have a huge deficit created by the combination of a massive tax cut and two wars, added to by a recession (which collapsed revenues further) and a moderate stimulus program (which wasn't as effective as hoped but likely prevented the damage from being worse). One party thinks we can cut taxes to solve any problem - the other knows better. I've never loved the Democrats but at least they're the adults right now.
http://goo.gl/AnN2Y
Short version is this: Any Republican is better than what we've got. Really? One poster in the comments makes plenty of salient points, only to get accused of racism for not mentioning Herman (who?) Cain as a serious contender. Gee, surprised? And then Robin Douglas does a great job of summarizing the real Obama resume/record, only to be greeted with the all caps "NONE OF WHICH QUALIFIED HIM FOR THE PRESIDENCY". Really? Plenty of presidents (including our last one) got the job with fewer achievements in the real world. But in the end, here's what finds Obama qualified:
- He was elected to the Presidency by a majority of voters across the nation. Period. The American people have already held forth on his qualifications, and by electing him they found his qualifications acceptable. Period. Next years' election will hold judgement on his accomplishments in the office, not his qualifications for it. That argument is over. He was elected. Move on, mouth-breathers.
Newsflash: We are digging out of a recession still. The economy has improved but is not yet back where it was in 2007 and prior. We have a huge deficit created by the combination of a massive tax cut and two wars, added to by a recession (which collapsed revenues further) and a moderate stimulus program (which wasn't as effective as hoped but likely prevented the damage from being worse). One party thinks we can cut taxes to solve any problem - the other knows better. I've never loved the Democrats but at least they're the adults right now.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Memories of sites and culture past
I was thinking about the previously mentioned ongoing death of k5, and I started to also reflect on some aspects of my Geek Life from days past. Here's some of my geek memories:
- The Geek Pride Festivals (for 2 years here in Boston) that were held at the old Armory. I still have some goodies from them.
- Related to that, I remember meeting the folks from the now defunct NewsTrolls site (Stephen Downes remains active on the web from their crew, and I remember Pasty Drone was a rather attractive young lady who sang as her day job). CmdrTaco was at the first one, too.
- I have a low 4-digit ID at Slashdot, just to point that out...
- Back in the days when the local computer shows (Northern and KGP) were the only way to get components at reasonable prices, I went to the one that was at the Shriners' Auditorium in Wilmington (I used to go to them every few months) and Bob Young was there, selling Linux CDs and books at a table in the entranceway from his mail-order tech bookstore in my hometown of Westport CT. Bob went on to partner up with a part-time programmer at CMU named Marc Ewing, and turned ACC into a company to sell Marc's Linux distribution. You may have heard of the company - it became Red Hat Software.
- There was a guy at the MIT Flea shows who sold nothing but NeXT Cubes. Did a nice business, even after NeXT was merged into Apple.
- I used to be a client of TIAC, one of the first ISPs in the region. I used to build Linux boxes because I'd decided that was the wave of the future (about 15 years later, I got tired of waiting for the future to finally arrive and nowadays I just pretty much do Mac OS X and Windows) and I upgraded from on-demand dial-up to a full-time 56k modem connection. TIAC gave me a Class C range to play with and so I routed it in the house. I still remember one day back in about '97 or so that my modem had gone offline at their NOC, so I drove to Bedford at 11PM, walked into the server room, and reset it. I had an unusual level of trust with them as customers went.
- My original Linux server (it was named kramer.janeshouse.com and went through several different incarnations) was actually one of the first few thousand websites back when nobody was quite sure what this "web" thing would amount to. Everything was managed by hand and all my publishing was in straight HTML with no authoring system or CMS. Which is part of why I don't run it anymore!
- For years, I was the only 802.11 network broadcasting within about 3 blocks of my house. Right now I just checked and I can see 9 others from my upstairs office. Optimistically, they are all password-protected.
- In the days when shows like Interop came to Boston, I was active in the Netware Users' Group around here (BNUG has survived to this day and still does business - I even served as President myself in the late '90s for 3 years). We used to sponsor a booth and beer bash event with all the vendors during it. Lots of promo goods in the days when servers had 50% margins for resellers.
- I also have fond memories of the old Boston Macworld Expo. Back in the mid-90s just before the return of Steve the event peaked - Ingram Micro used to sponsor a fairly wild party at the Museum of Science during the show and I was a regular, along with my wife and any of our friends we could get tickets for. I recall the old Talking Moose returning as a full commercial product one year. The vendor had a person walking around the Expo handing out demo disks dressed in a Talking Moose costume. He showed up at the party and was dancing with the girls until he passed out from heat exhaustion.
(reference that only a couple of people will get: "but I got the Berkowitzes!")
- The Boston show was yanked the year after Steve's return to Apple in 1997 and sent to New York for a few years (it briefly returned to Boston after Apple pulled their participation). I think Steve disliked the idea of riding buses between the two Expo sites in Boston.
- In 2000 I took the plunge and went to the Expo in NYC. Wasn't the same. Though I did get to see Jason Whong of Ambrosia Software eat bugs on stage and get drunk.
- The whole industry peaked in 2000 - the year the dot-com bust really started. At the Atlanta Interop show that year (I went for 4 consecutive years on the trip until 2001 when I was there for 9/11) they had Gigabit Ethernet (at the time a new standard) being sent via barbed wire, Penn & Teller were performing at a booth, and another vendor had the late Andrew (Test) Martin and Lisa (Ivory) Moretti from the WWF running a booth where people wrestled in sumo suits.
That's just a short reflection and semi random, but it's some of the things that stood out for me as memories of a bygone era in IT culture. The Internet was a place where you went to the local ISP and hung out with the folks there who ran it. There were no firewalls unless you were a government contractor or huge company. NAT wasn't needed - you were either dial-up or routed. The companies that are big today back then were a guy with a vendor pass and a table full of merchandise. The companies that were big then were fat enough to pay big-name performers to hang at their trade show booths. Of course they did - a decent computer cost about $3000 or more!
I miss it sometimes, but as I prepare to begin another lap around the Sun tomorrow, I don't miss it as much as I used to.
- The Geek Pride Festivals (for 2 years here in Boston) that were held at the old Armory. I still have some goodies from them.
- Related to that, I remember meeting the folks from the now defunct NewsTrolls site (Stephen Downes remains active on the web from their crew, and I remember Pasty Drone was a rather attractive young lady who sang as her day job). CmdrTaco was at the first one, too.
- I have a low 4-digit ID at Slashdot, just to point that out...
- Back in the days when the local computer shows (Northern and KGP) were the only way to get components at reasonable prices, I went to the one that was at the Shriners' Auditorium in Wilmington (I used to go to them every few months) and Bob Young was there, selling Linux CDs and books at a table in the entranceway from his mail-order tech bookstore in my hometown of Westport CT. Bob went on to partner up with a part-time programmer at CMU named Marc Ewing, and turned ACC into a company to sell Marc's Linux distribution. You may have heard of the company - it became Red Hat Software.
- There was a guy at the MIT Flea shows who sold nothing but NeXT Cubes. Did a nice business, even after NeXT was merged into Apple.
- I used to be a client of TIAC, one of the first ISPs in the region. I used to build Linux boxes because I'd decided that was the wave of the future (about 15 years later, I got tired of waiting for the future to finally arrive and nowadays I just pretty much do Mac OS X and Windows) and I upgraded from on-demand dial-up to a full-time 56k modem connection. TIAC gave me a Class C range to play with and so I routed it in the house. I still remember one day back in about '97 or so that my modem had gone offline at their NOC, so I drove to Bedford at 11PM, walked into the server room, and reset it. I had an unusual level of trust with them as customers went.
- My original Linux server (it was named kramer.janeshouse.com and went through several different incarnations) was actually one of the first few thousand websites back when nobody was quite sure what this "web" thing would amount to. Everything was managed by hand and all my publishing was in straight HTML with no authoring system or CMS. Which is part of why I don't run it anymore!
- For years, I was the only 802.11 network broadcasting within about 3 blocks of my house. Right now I just checked and I can see 9 others from my upstairs office. Optimistically, they are all password-protected.
- In the days when shows like Interop came to Boston, I was active in the Netware Users' Group around here (BNUG has survived to this day and still does business - I even served as President myself in the late '90s for 3 years). We used to sponsor a booth and beer bash event with all the vendors during it. Lots of promo goods in the days when servers had 50% margins for resellers.
- I also have fond memories of the old Boston Macworld Expo. Back in the mid-90s just before the return of Steve the event peaked - Ingram Micro used to sponsor a fairly wild party at the Museum of Science during the show and I was a regular, along with my wife and any of our friends we could get tickets for. I recall the old Talking Moose returning as a full commercial product one year. The vendor had a person walking around the Expo handing out demo disks dressed in a Talking Moose costume. He showed up at the party and was dancing with the girls until he passed out from heat exhaustion.
(reference that only a couple of people will get: "but I got the Berkowitzes!")
- The Boston show was yanked the year after Steve's return to Apple in 1997 and sent to New York for a few years (it briefly returned to Boston after Apple pulled their participation). I think Steve disliked the idea of riding buses between the two Expo sites in Boston.
- In 2000 I took the plunge and went to the Expo in NYC. Wasn't the same. Though I did get to see Jason Whong of Ambrosia Software eat bugs on stage and get drunk.
- The whole industry peaked in 2000 - the year the dot-com bust really started. At the Atlanta Interop show that year (I went for 4 consecutive years on the trip until 2001 when I was there for 9/11) they had Gigabit Ethernet (at the time a new standard) being sent via barbed wire, Penn & Teller were performing at a booth, and another vendor had the late Andrew (Test) Martin and Lisa (Ivory) Moretti from the WWF running a booth where people wrestled in sumo suits.
That's just a short reflection and semi random, but it's some of the things that stood out for me as memories of a bygone era in IT culture. The Internet was a place where you went to the local ISP and hung out with the folks there who ran it. There were no firewalls unless you were a government contractor or huge company. NAT wasn't needed - you were either dial-up or routed. The companies that are big today back then were a guy with a vendor pass and a table full of merchandise. The companies that were big then were fat enough to pay big-name performers to hang at their trade show booths. Of course they did - a decent computer cost about $3000 or more!
I miss it sometimes, but as I prepare to begin another lap around the Sun tomorrow, I don't miss it as much as I used to.
Saturday, April 09, 2011
One of my old favorite websites is dying
Back around the turn of the last decade, the website kuro5hin.org was a popular place, with a diverse community posting about technology and social issues. There was a proto-blogging feature (diaries), some very skilled and verbose posters, and the site was well-managed. I was a regular there (posting as "the original jht". At the time it looked like k5 (the nickname most folks had for it) would be one of the big long-term winners in "new media".
But sometime around 2004 or so, things started changing there. First of all, due to to some changes in his personal life, the site's founder couldn't spend as much time and care on the site as he once could. Then other sites with a more clearly defined profitability model started gaining traction. Finally, the trolls came and started chasing out the regulars. Today, though k5 is still on the Internet, it's barely registering in traffic stats and the community has mainly dispersed. The big surviving (and thriving) sites from that era are Slashdot and Fark (I'm still active at both of them, too).
But before k5 faded away, there were some really interesting discussions. Recently, I was wondering what I should do with all my content i posted there over the years I was active. This morning, I logged in and using the powers of copy/paste I created an archive file of it all. And I'm going to repost a few of my writings, along with the Big Questions I was responding to in them. Here's my first one below:
Original story link
My response:
I'd set priorities - the world needs basics first (3.00 / 2) (#293)
by the original jht on Tue Feb 26, 2002 at 09:00:40 AM EST
First off - the world needs cheap, reliable power. I'd build power plants in parts of the world that need them, using appropriate technology for an area (wind, solar, coal, gas, nuclear - probably not oil). People with no power don't need a lot - just enough for lights, refrigeration, and perhaps radio and/or TV. This'll make a big impact to people's lives and provide energy for the next two things on the list:
Item number 2 (and 3): Clean water supplies and adequate sanitation for parts of the world that don't have it. That'll cut back on disease vectors and improve health greatly.
Fourth - Provide basic medical care in places where it's not currently available. A little help goes a long way here, and money I gave out would be well-complimented by other charitable giving.
Fifth - Education. We need to replace the madrases (I think I spelled it right) and their equivalents in other nations with good, solid, basic secularized education. People don't need to be "fully indoctrinated into the capitalist system" to learn neutral facts about the world, how to read, write, and perform basic math, and be functional citizens of their society. People need to learn enough to thrive within their nation, and they need to learn that the rest of the world is not full of prospective enemies.
With those essentials funded, I think the world will be ultimately be able to take care of itself quite nicely.
Of course, the first three items on the list will cost money to build and money to run - As a society that is serviced improves their standard of living I'd expect to be able to charge enough for the infrastructure to pay for ongoing costs. So the infrastructure needs to be built as economically as possible understanding that the point of break-even operation may be years away.
And finally, I'd keep a million or so for myself to live off of - I'm going to be pretty busy coordinating all this and will not have time for my real job anymore. Hey - a man's gotta eat (and have a vacation house on the Vineyard!)...
But sometime around 2004 or so, things started changing there. First of all, due to to some changes in his personal life, the site's founder couldn't spend as much time and care on the site as he once could. Then other sites with a more clearly defined profitability model started gaining traction. Finally, the trolls came and started chasing out the regulars. Today, though k5 is still on the Internet, it's barely registering in traffic stats and the community has mainly dispersed. The big surviving (and thriving) sites from that era are Slashdot and Fark (I'm still active at both of them, too).
But before k5 faded away, there were some really interesting discussions. Recently, I was wondering what I should do with all my content i posted there over the years I was active. This morning, I logged in and using the powers of copy/paste I created an archive file of it all. And I'm going to repost a few of my writings, along with the Big Questions I was responding to in them. Here's my first one below:
Original story link
Make the world a better place.
By seebs in Culture
Sun Feb 24, 2002 at 03:52:00 PM EST
Tags: Round Table (all tags)
If you were given a budget of a trillion US dollars, with the goal of making the world "a better place", what would you do?
I've occasionally had this conversation with friends, and it's amazing how many different ideas people have of what would make the most difference. What would you do, if you were going to try to get the most bang for your buck? A little of everything? One big project? Would you focus on short-term improvements, or long-term ones?
And no, I don't mean just this planet; if you think colonizing Mars is the best use of your money, go ahead.
My response:
I'd set priorities - the world needs basics first (3.00 / 2) (#293)
by the original jht on Tue Feb 26, 2002 at 09:00:40 AM EST
First off - the world needs cheap, reliable power. I'd build power plants in parts of the world that need them, using appropriate technology for an area (wind, solar, coal, gas, nuclear - probably not oil). People with no power don't need a lot - just enough for lights, refrigeration, and perhaps radio and/or TV. This'll make a big impact to people's lives and provide energy for the next two things on the list:
Item number 2 (and 3): Clean water supplies and adequate sanitation for parts of the world that don't have it. That'll cut back on disease vectors and improve health greatly.
Fourth - Provide basic medical care in places where it's not currently available. A little help goes a long way here, and money I gave out would be well-complimented by other charitable giving.
Fifth - Education. We need to replace the madrases (I think I spelled it right) and their equivalents in other nations with good, solid, basic secularized education. People don't need to be "fully indoctrinated into the capitalist system" to learn neutral facts about the world, how to read, write, and perform basic math, and be functional citizens of their society. People need to learn enough to thrive within their nation, and they need to learn that the rest of the world is not full of prospective enemies.
With those essentials funded, I think the world will be ultimately be able to take care of itself quite nicely.
Of course, the first three items on the list will cost money to build and money to run - As a society that is serviced improves their standard of living I'd expect to be able to charge enough for the infrastructure to pay for ongoing costs. So the infrastructure needs to be built as economically as possible understanding that the point of break-even operation may be years away.
And finally, I'd keep a million or so for myself to live off of - I'm going to be pretty busy coordinating all this and will not have time for my real job anymore. Hey - a man's gotta eat (and have a vacation house on the Vineyard!)...
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Salem political scene, as captured in the Salem News:
First, we have the editorial board:
"Taxes are bad. Government projects are good. Salem needs more of them."
Then, regular columnist Brian Watson:
"Why can't (Israelis/Palestinians) (Junkies/Residents) (Anyone/Opponent) just get along?"
Add to that resident one-noter Barbara Anderson:
"Why does anyone here even vote for a Democrat anyways? Can't you see they're EVIL?"
Plus regular letter-writer Anna Della Monica:
"How dare they tear down the ugly-ass brick former church on Lafayette Street! White brick boxes are pure history!"
Our local Wiccan community:
"What Salem needs are more Tarot card readers and places to buy incense - that's what's wrong. And if cars can drive up the pedestrian mall they'll but more of it!"
Infamous former board poster Northern_Lynn:
"Kim Driscoll's conspiring to turn us into a slum with taxes of $20k per home, and she runs the Illuminati, too!"
And finally, our esteemed City Council:
"It is too our business, and we're going to stop the mayor from running the town because we all want to do it. Besides, she snubbed one of us at a birthday party once or something like that.."
Add those all up, stir in a healthy dash of batshiat-crazy, and there's a snapshot of our political scene. And if you look it up on the Salem News site, you won't see any agreement (or any disagreement) - because all the commenters left a couple of weeks ago when the Snooze started requiring real names to comment.
"Taxes are bad. Government projects are good. Salem needs more of them."
Then, regular columnist Brian Watson:
"Why can't (Israelis/Palestinians) (Junkies/Residents) (Anyone/Opponent) just get along?"
Add to that resident one-noter Barbara Anderson:
"Why does anyone here even vote for a Democrat anyways? Can't you see they're EVIL?"
Plus regular letter-writer Anna Della Monica:
"How dare they tear down the ugly-ass brick former church on Lafayette Street! White brick boxes are pure history!"
Our local Wiccan community:
"What Salem needs are more Tarot card readers and places to buy incense - that's what's wrong. And if cars can drive up the pedestrian mall they'll but more of it!"
Infamous former board poster Northern_Lynn:
"Kim Driscoll's conspiring to turn us into a slum with taxes of $20k per home, and she runs the Illuminati, too!"
And finally, our esteemed City Council:
"It is too our business, and we're going to stop the mayor from running the town because we all want to do it. Besides, she snubbed one of us at a birthday party once or something like that.."
Add those all up, stir in a healthy dash of batshiat-crazy, and there's a snapshot of our political scene. And if you look it up on the Salem News site, you won't see any agreement (or any disagreement) - because all the commenters left a couple of weeks ago when the Snooze started requiring real names to comment.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Is Steve Jobs Essential?
This is in the wake of reading today's announcement that Jobs is once again taking a medical leave of absence due to health issues. First of all, I wish him well. Steve is a man with billions of dollars but he's also a man with a family and the CEO of a company that thousands of people work for. For the sake of all of them (but especially the family) I hope he gets better.
How important is Steve to Apple? He's the public face and voice of Apple, and he's the veto on everything. But he's not the day-to-day manager nowadays - Tim Cook is that and by all accounts he's terrific at it. Ron Johnson is the man behind the Apple Store experience. Jonny Ive is the design guru behind the look and feel of every hardware product Apple produces (in collaboration with Jobs). Bob Mansfield makes Macs and other hardware work well. Bertie Serlet is the person behind the OS, and he's one of the NeXT vets. So is Scott Forstall, the man behind iOS.
Where Steve comes in is as the tone-setter. He makes the call to ax a product. He makes the "ship or not" decision. His DNA is infused within Apple's executive team. Can Apple continue executing without Steve Jobs? Absolutely. Most of the products they make a ton of money from don't spring from the mind of Jobs. They come from the teams under him. The place where I have concerns is in the vision side - there isn't (as far as I can see) a person there right now who can say "this is the future, this is where we are going, and it will proceed, period". If that person exists at Apple in the exec suite, now is the time for them to start becoming a mini-Steve in preparation for the day they need to take over. Hopefully it won't be for a while.
Meantime, I have a firm trust in the product pipeline. Product decisions are already made that will come in to play for the remainder of 2011 and into 2012. The iPhone 5 is done. So is the iPad 2. The iPad 3 and iPhone 6 are well underway as of now. MacOS X 10.7 is due this year. Mac hardware for the rest of the year is designed and ready, so are this year's iPods. I'm not worried about 2011, and I'm not too worried about 2012. They've made some odd decisions that affect my business as a consultant (mainly because I work extensively with Apple Retail in my business) that are odd, but that isn't stuff that is decided in the C-Suite.
My hope is to see Steve resume as much of a role as he can in the near future. If he can't do that, I'd like to see Tim Cook named CEO, Jobs remain Chairman, and some more talent come on board if needed. More than anyone not named Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs has his company and his identity intertwined. Hopefully Apple is well-prepared for that to not be so, and hopefully now is not the time to find out.
How important is Steve to Apple? He's the public face and voice of Apple, and he's the veto on everything. But he's not the day-to-day manager nowadays - Tim Cook is that and by all accounts he's terrific at it. Ron Johnson is the man behind the Apple Store experience. Jonny Ive is the design guru behind the look and feel of every hardware product Apple produces (in collaboration with Jobs). Bob Mansfield makes Macs and other hardware work well. Bertie Serlet is the person behind the OS, and he's one of the NeXT vets. So is Scott Forstall, the man behind iOS.
Where Steve comes in is as the tone-setter. He makes the call to ax a product. He makes the "ship or not" decision. His DNA is infused within Apple's executive team. Can Apple continue executing without Steve Jobs? Absolutely. Most of the products they make a ton of money from don't spring from the mind of Jobs. They come from the teams under him. The place where I have concerns is in the vision side - there isn't (as far as I can see) a person there right now who can say "this is the future, this is where we are going, and it will proceed, period". If that person exists at Apple in the exec suite, now is the time for them to start becoming a mini-Steve in preparation for the day they need to take over. Hopefully it won't be for a while.
Meantime, I have a firm trust in the product pipeline. Product decisions are already made that will come in to play for the remainder of 2011 and into 2012. The iPhone 5 is done. So is the iPad 2. The iPad 3 and iPhone 6 are well underway as of now. MacOS X 10.7 is due this year. Mac hardware for the rest of the year is designed and ready, so are this year's iPods. I'm not worried about 2011, and I'm not too worried about 2012. They've made some odd decisions that affect my business as a consultant (mainly because I work extensively with Apple Retail in my business) that are odd, but that isn't stuff that is decided in the C-Suite.
My hope is to see Steve resume as much of a role as he can in the near future. If he can't do that, I'd like to see Tim Cook named CEO, Jobs remain Chairman, and some more talent come on board if needed. More than anyone not named Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs has his company and his identity intertwined. Hopefully Apple is well-prepared for that to not be so, and hopefully now is not the time to find out.
What went wrong?
True, I rarely write about stick & ball sports (I do write about NASCAR once in a while), but after the Patriots blew up their season last night I thought I should twist it around a little more before officially going into "anyone but the bleeping Jets" mode for the rest of the no-longer-interesting to me playoffs.
The game started really well, forcing the Jets into a 3 and out on the first possession. The Pats then started moving the ball easily, making mostly short passes to running backs and the tight ends and very quickly getting down the field. Even when Brady made his first pick in over 3 months, it didn't seem like a killer - the resulting defensive stand was outstanding and the field goal miss gave the ball back in good shape.
But the ensuing drive for a field goal wasn't quite as sharp as the opener, and now 2 dominant drives that resulted in a pick and only 3 points total had left the game tight early. The Patriots had been winning with early offensive execution that forced the other team into mistakes. That was the last offense we saw from the Pats until late in the third quarter.
The other killer play in the first half was the failed fake punt. Even if Chung had handled the snap fine, coverage looked like it might have gotten him anyway. A poor play call at a bad time. That resulted in what turned out to be the back-breaking score.
The way the Patriots blew up the Jets in December was to get ahead enough of them that Mark Sanchez was forced to take chances that he's not really experienced or talented enough to succeed with. He's not a terrible QB, but spotting them a lead gives the Jets a chance to cover up his weaknesses easily.
The sequence that clinched it was after the Patriots drew to 14-11 late. The defense had settled in well after the Jets got a lead and was playing effectively. But they immediately allowed the Jets to score to turn it back into a 2-score game. That took the momentum back and pretty much ended the game.
There's a lot of soul-searching that has to take place in Foxboro this winter. Right now, the Pats are losers of their last 3 postseason games and even though none of us expected a 14-2 dominant regular season, getting smoked in the divisional round by a team that we trashed a month prior (especially the Jets) is not the way to go out. The young secondary is a strength, the linebacking corps is solid, but the defensive line is thin and the Patriots' offense now has a 3-game track record of failing to show up in big playoff games. Not good. This may be a good year to use those stockpiled draft picks.
And one FOOTnote: Sitting Welker for the first series. Really bad move. Might have even contributed to the INT Brady threw. Yes, the Pats are all about discipline and marching orders, but if you can't even get out a few under-the-text gags without being punished that's just stupid. Deal with that in-house without sitting your key receiver.
Hearing that Welker was sitting was the first moment I started to have fear about this game. Winning the game is more important than maintaining the Patriot Way.
The game started really well, forcing the Jets into a 3 and out on the first possession. The Pats then started moving the ball easily, making mostly short passes to running backs and the tight ends and very quickly getting down the field. Even when Brady made his first pick in over 3 months, it didn't seem like a killer - the resulting defensive stand was outstanding and the field goal miss gave the ball back in good shape.
But the ensuing drive for a field goal wasn't quite as sharp as the opener, and now 2 dominant drives that resulted in a pick and only 3 points total had left the game tight early. The Patriots had been winning with early offensive execution that forced the other team into mistakes. That was the last offense we saw from the Pats until late in the third quarter.
The other killer play in the first half was the failed fake punt. Even if Chung had handled the snap fine, coverage looked like it might have gotten him anyway. A poor play call at a bad time. That resulted in what turned out to be the back-breaking score.
The way the Patriots blew up the Jets in December was to get ahead enough of them that Mark Sanchez was forced to take chances that he's not really experienced or talented enough to succeed with. He's not a terrible QB, but spotting them a lead gives the Jets a chance to cover up his weaknesses easily.
The sequence that clinched it was after the Patriots drew to 14-11 late. The defense had settled in well after the Jets got a lead and was playing effectively. But they immediately allowed the Jets to score to turn it back into a 2-score game. That took the momentum back and pretty much ended the game.
There's a lot of soul-searching that has to take place in Foxboro this winter. Right now, the Pats are losers of their last 3 postseason games and even though none of us expected a 14-2 dominant regular season, getting smoked in the divisional round by a team that we trashed a month prior (especially the Jets) is not the way to go out. The young secondary is a strength, the linebacking corps is solid, but the defensive line is thin and the Patriots' offense now has a 3-game track record of failing to show up in big playoff games. Not good. This may be a good year to use those stockpiled draft picks.
And one FOOTnote: Sitting Welker for the first series. Really bad move. Might have even contributed to the INT Brady threw. Yes, the Pats are all about discipline and marching orders, but if you can't even get out a few under-the-text gags without being punished that's just stupid. Deal with that in-house without sitting your key receiver.
Hearing that Welker was sitting was the first moment I started to have fear about this game. Winning the game is more important than maintaining the Patriot Way.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Oh - it's on, baby!
Verizon now has an iPhone. Hot rumor today is that Sprint will get their own in February. LTE has been slow enough rolling out to make it worth Apple's time and effort to build a CDMA version of the iPhone. So here's what I see this meaning over the remainder of 2011:
1 - I no longer think that the iPhone 5 will be an LTE device. AT&T doesn't have anything live yet, and Verizon is really just pushing it for data at this time. Sprint is currently tied to WiMax for 4G. Plus the LTE chipsets are still very early-stage.
2 - iPhone 5 will likely be a unified device with a combined GSM/CDMA chipset. I also suspect that VoRA (Voice over Revision A) support will be built in to it, as Verizon has said that that is slated for rollout beginning this spring. Maybe it's supported by the chipset in the current iPhone 4/CDMA, but we won't know until it gets torn down.
3 - Google is scared about US Android numbers. They announced the removal of H.264 support from Chrome yesterday and that is the first shoe to drop. Google controls YouTube, the single most popular video site on the web. YouTube has been experimenting with direct H.264 encoding (I prefer it - far better performance and lower CPU usage), and Flash has been taking hits. Well, now Flash will be the only supported way to handle H.264 on Chrome with Google favoring their WebM codec for HTML5 video.
The two vendors now backing H.264 the strongest? Apple and Microsoft. Look for Google to pull H.264 support from Android in favor of their codec, and they'll try to turn YouTube into a site that only uses Flash or WebM in the hopes of killing it for iOS users. The Hail Mary pass they're throwing here is to try and convince users that Android and Chrome are the ways to get YouTube.
Personally, I think that'll just open up an opportunity for a good YouTube competitor to take over - much as Facebook defeated MySpace.
4 - Google now needs to hit a tablet home run. CES showed us all the new Android 3 tablets, but Apple just sucked most of the handset oxygen out of Vegas with the Verizon iPhone, and within a couple of weeks they'll do iPad 2 as well. The beta of iOS 4.3 dropped today, and you can safely predict that'll ship with the new iPads within 4-8 weeks. Android is likely to be relegated to the extreme low end of the market. The brilliant analyst Horace Dediu at Asymco has it pegged. Android exerts pressure downward at the cheap non-smartphone handsets. They move volume. But those aren't the users buying apps and media outside of ringtones. The iOS users (which also includes iPod Touch owners - nothing is shipping from an Android vendor yet that is comparable) are buying apps and that locks them into the platform. Apple makes a ton of money that way and has people upgrading constantly.
Apps = lock-in. Remember that.
In a market where iPhone is on one carrier, Android is great on all the other ones because it's the best the users can get if they're not on that carrier. If they can get an iPhone instead, they likely will.
Yep, it's on! And it only took 2 weeks of 2011 to get the party going.
1 - I no longer think that the iPhone 5 will be an LTE device. AT&T doesn't have anything live yet, and Verizon is really just pushing it for data at this time. Sprint is currently tied to WiMax for 4G. Plus the LTE chipsets are still very early-stage.
2 - iPhone 5 will likely be a unified device with a combined GSM/CDMA chipset. I also suspect that VoRA (Voice over Revision A) support will be built in to it, as Verizon has said that that is slated for rollout beginning this spring. Maybe it's supported by the chipset in the current iPhone 4/CDMA, but we won't know until it gets torn down.
3 - Google is scared about US Android numbers. They announced the removal of H.264 support from Chrome yesterday and that is the first shoe to drop. Google controls YouTube, the single most popular video site on the web. YouTube has been experimenting with direct H.264 encoding (I prefer it - far better performance and lower CPU usage), and Flash has been taking hits. Well, now Flash will be the only supported way to handle H.264 on Chrome with Google favoring their WebM codec for HTML5 video.
The two vendors now backing H.264 the strongest? Apple and Microsoft. Look for Google to pull H.264 support from Android in favor of their codec, and they'll try to turn YouTube into a site that only uses Flash or WebM in the hopes of killing it for iOS users. The Hail Mary pass they're throwing here is to try and convince users that Android and Chrome are the ways to get YouTube.
Personally, I think that'll just open up an opportunity for a good YouTube competitor to take over - much as Facebook defeated MySpace.
4 - Google now needs to hit a tablet home run. CES showed us all the new Android 3 tablets, but Apple just sucked most of the handset oxygen out of Vegas with the Verizon iPhone, and within a couple of weeks they'll do iPad 2 as well. The beta of iOS 4.3 dropped today, and you can safely predict that'll ship with the new iPads within 4-8 weeks. Android is likely to be relegated to the extreme low end of the market. The brilliant analyst Horace Dediu at Asymco has it pegged. Android exerts pressure downward at the cheap non-smartphone handsets. They move volume. But those aren't the users buying apps and media outside of ringtones. The iOS users (which also includes iPod Touch owners - nothing is shipping from an Android vendor yet that is comparable) are buying apps and that locks them into the platform. Apple makes a ton of money that way and has people upgrading constantly.
Apps = lock-in. Remember that.
In a market where iPhone is on one carrier, Android is great on all the other ones because it's the best the users can get if they're not on that carrier. If they can get an iPhone instead, they likely will.
Yep, it's on! And it only took 2 weeks of 2011 to get the party going.
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