QOTD, Scientist RE: Doomsday, There (may) be Dragons

Perhaps you have heard of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) operated by European Center for Nuclear Research or NAMBLA, err I mean CERN.

For those of you who haven't. Its a monstrous 8 Billion dollar machine outside Geneva, constructed for the purpose of smashing tiny particles into each other at unbelievable levels of energy and speed to recreate conditions a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.

Why, well to do science requires observation. We cannot exactly observe that instant back in time, so why not recreate it.

The problem is, a couple of people think its a really, really bad idea. The kind of idea that could end life as we know it on earth, either through the production of stranglets or a micro black hole that could swallow us all. Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho feel so strongly that they are suing CERN in Hawaii asking for "a temporary restraining order prohibiting CERN from proceeding with the accelerator until it has produced a safety report and an environmental assessment."

Why Hawaii has any jurisdiction over an international science organization in Switzerland, is anybody's guess.

All of this is reported in today's NYTimes and covered by Slashdot and various Tech rags. And leads us directly to The QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Dr. Arkani-Hamed said concerning worries about the death of the Earth or universe, “Neither has any merit.” He pointed out that because of the dice-throwing nature of quantum physics, there was some probability of almost anything happening. There is some minuscule probability, he said, “the Large Hadron Collider might make dragons that might eat us up.”

When are they planning on firing this thing up? I want to be ready, my suit of armor is still out being repaired.

Strip courtesy of http://www.xkcd.com

CERN has a page dedicated to these concerns. They get second place for Quote of the Day with this.

Microscopic black holes will not eat you...

MrCopilot

Why Miguel, Why?

Dear Miguel,

Read your post. One question immediately springs to mind.

Why?

You said:

I have been reading the OOXML storm in a teacup for more than a year now. Am looking forward to the approval of OOXML as an ISO standard and to be able to move the discussion back to the things that actually matter: free and open source software.

I think we all agree that what matters is Free and Open Source software. Where we differ is in the looking forward to the ISO approval of OOXML.

How would this be beneficial to FLOSS? The implication is that the long string of "countless bytes" being "wasted" on this subject would be over, and we will all get back to writing about more important matters.

The problem with this way of thinking is not to hard understand. Most of the Free Software community is strongly opposed to OOXML as an ISO standard, either because of the FACT that it is a horribly incomplete and unimplementable document format or the FACT that OOXML is redundant. ISO already approved a document standard, ODF.

Punditry and lobbying will not get us very far, real work will.

Surely, you don't honestly think the pundits do that work, do you? I'm a pundit and sure I submit bug reports (not as often as I should), I write software (not as much as I'd like), but my real contribution is as an advocate, to my customers and to my visitors. (and pretty much anybody else who doesn't run screaming from the room)

So I ask you again, how will ISO approval of a proprietary, incomplete, Microsoft format, benefit the Free Desktop, or Open Source office applications?

In short Why Miguel? Why are you looking forward to it?

We have about 24hrs left for the decisions of member countries to be tallied. I for one, am looking forward to Monday, when we (hopefully) will have a single open and implementable document format. I look forward to Microsoft supporting that format in order to meet the requirements of government agencies the world over who mandate their data be Vendor Neutral and long lived.

Looking forward to Microsoft subverting an International Standards Organizations submission process, and beginning a new era of vendor lock-in and monopolistic office suites seems to be antithetical to Free and Open Source philosophy.

Of course there is another possibility. Perhaps, and this pure speculation of the wildest kind, but perhaps, you care less about the philosophy of open source and Free Software than you would have us believe. Perhaps you speak publicly from the same script as Patrick Durusau, mainly that ISO approval of OOXML is good for ODF. I am as persuaded by your argument as I am by his. You seem completely unfazed by the questionable tactics Microsoft has employed to try to ram this spec down the ISO's throat.

Maybe it is time for you to get back to your roots. Your entanglement in Microsoft technology has become more troubling every year. It is as if, you cannot see the thorns of the brambles you are wading through. It troubles me personally, the free desktop world needs good coders and if nothing else you certainly are that.

What happened to you Miguel, you used to be cool?


MrCopilot

This is a verbatim copy of an email sent to Miguel, No comment section on his blog.

For more coverage of the ISO approval process of OOXML:
Last Minute Vote Switching in OOXML Decision
Continuing Coverage of the process at Consortium.org
Vote Tallies as we learn them @ OpenMalaysia

Update: Unofficial reports indicate Approval. By one vote. How depressing! We must wait until Wednesday for the official announcement according to Roger Frost @ ISO a press release will be issued.

Update#2 - 3/31/2008: Miguel has responded by email. First I must thank him (again) for his time. Second he has asked that I keep our conversation private. Rest assured he answered my Why question and made a vigorous defense of his position. He has done so in such a way that was, frankly, reassuring about his commitments to Free Software despite the allusions and appearances otherwise. I still disagree with him, but I understand his reasoning a little better now.

OLPC, Anon, Sam, MrCopilot

Quoth the Comments Section:
Verily I must agree with my dear friend Anonymous here.

Anonymous said...
"First, have the guts to write under your own name."
It may be cute to adopt monikers but if you are out there on the web, put your name to what you write. Anonymous posts are the work of cowards.

I think you may misunderstand the meaning of the word Anonymous.

MrCopilot is a name, a company, a family, a person, a domain name, a blog, a freelance writer, and they are all me. Go ahead search me, have at you, I wrote almost all that stuff. However, if you were to search for me by name, parsing through the results would take days, literally days. I represent an infinitesimal fraction of the data of my ancestors and the like named. Authors, Scientist, Fraudsters, Geniuses, Bigots, Lesbians, Actors, and all around a great bunch, just not me.
Spoiler Alert

My Last Name is not Copilot.

My name is not a secret. I bet it takes the average reader less than 30 minutes to find it.
Once you do though, do me a favor and Google it, try to find anything I wrote, there is some in there, no really somewhere in 313,000 results. My real name makes me anonymous.
Hence a new mark was required.

Meanwhile, you can be fairly certain that if it says MrCopilot, I wrote it and you can find it easily.

Now here comes the hard part. After all that, we have to cut to the the end this Anonymous post which is "signed" Sam Varghese, for a quick disclaimer: I have no way to tell if this was the "real" Same Varghese, but they have a similar tone. And hey at least it is a conversation, sort of. If these are not the words of Sam Varghese, I address them to Anonymous, my life long friend.

Ah, if no real point was made why are you getting all hot and bothered?

What point were you driving at? "Look at these greedy Americans trying to swindle the world with a useless product?" That seemed to be the implication, and I'm sorry I don't see it. I humble disagree.

My reference was to "any and all problems". There is a mountain of difference between that and the word "some". It's easy to construct a straw man and then deflect his argumente.

Yep,

One thing common to practically all these agencies is that they actually believe that Western technology can alleviate any and all problems in the Third World.

Except, some of them can be solved with technology. Are you saying we should not try to solve any? Or every application of technology is futile? Where is the point in that false statement?

Specifically the OLPC has a very narrow focus. They don't pretend to know what millions of children connected to vast libraries of knowledge can do with tomorrow, but they sure want to find out. They do know a few things. Like the weight and cost of books for these children.

Any actual good done, I suppose is irrelevant to your rant, I mean narrative.

Do you have any instances of this? If so, put up.

Of good done by non profit organizations, or the OLPC, or the impact the XO is having in the tiny laptop world? You put up. What is the danger? Theft I think you mentioned, I'll get back to that.

Why not let this guy sell a few governments educational devices for children. I certainly prefer it to arms. I certainly support the spread of literacy, computer literacy, and yes free software literacy to every child we can.

I am really not interested in what David Pogue does. I am interested in the chap I met who made a claim - and then refused to provide verifiable evidence of it. Period.

That is too bad, he does a fine job. For instance, when he writes about the XO laptop, he actually uses one or two. He tests them. He RESEARCHES the OLPC. But, that is not everybody's cup of tea, I understand.

No, as a journalist (a simple Google search would have given you sufficient detail but then facts would get in the way of your blog post, wouldn't they?) who has done the hard yards for close on 30 years in three countries. I was there for a job

I humbly apologize, your press pass yielding, paycheck cashing, fountain of journalism, sir. I make no assumptions of you journalistic ability or experience. Sorry if "Blogger" hurt your feelings. Did you ever write that Intel Presentation story?

If the village has ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD, who is going to steal them?
Is it only kids who live in villages? Have you ever been to a village?

Buddy, I practically live in a Hamlet.
Security and Theft have been well thought out, discussed and appropriate measures can be taken in areas where it is necessary for instance.

We are talking about spending money on supplying books which are expensive, heavy and easily damaged or an XO for a child. Which does more good? Which is more utilitarian? Which is a better investment? Better yet which is the child more likely to learn from?
You obviously have never interacted with children in a rural setting. I have.

And, I fail to see your point. Answer the Question.

There are some things which people in the West will never understand.

Yep, you got me, I don't understand what is wrong with these Mongolian kids learning on an education platform provided by their government or donations. Please enlighten us all.

It is easy to believe that OLPC is a selfish organization if you are unfamiliar with empathy and selfless acts of human decency. Shame on you sir.

No human act is unselfish - don't kid yourself.

I'll kid myself all I like, thank you. Your statement proves my point, you wouldn't recognize it if you saw it.

Make no mistake about it, all these guys are going to make a lot of cash. Mary Lou probably first. Negroponte is well off enough. The programmers and management teams will have excellent careers once they leave OLPC. Deservedly so. The XO is an incredible piece of hardware, designed for a purpose with a vision. The commercialization of the technology making up the XO will be with us shortly. And in that sense there is money to be made. So they all aren't completely selfless. I bet the donors and volunteers feel pretty good about themselves too, those smug bastards.

OLPC is a commercial project

No, it isn't.

OLPC is not, at heart, a technology program, nor is the XO a product in any conventional sense of the word. OLPC is a non-profit organization providing a means to an end—an end that sees children in even the most remote regions of the globe being given the opportunity to tap into their own potential, to be exposed to a whole world of ideas, and to contribute to a more productive and saner world community.
http://laptop.org/en/vision/mission/index.shtml

They are not giving away the laptops free.

In essence that is exactly what they are doing. Someone has to pay for the parts. OLPC thinks that is probably best left to the education ministry of each country.

People in the West love to think of themselves as humanitarians - after their governments have raped countries in the East. While that happens, they keep quiet.

Sam Varghese March 1, 2008

Raping Humanitarians, excellent band.

Seriously, hanging the OLPC for actions of the US and company is a little overboard, no?


MrCopilot

OLPC A Good Idea, Badly Misunderstood

ITWire has a rant disguised as an opinion piece titled OLPC: one bad idea per child by Sam Varghese.

I should let it be known I have written on the OLPC XO before. All of my articles have showered it with praise. My kid wants one, I wouldn't mind tinkering a bit with it myself. So it should come as no surprise how I feel about Sam's article. Although no real point was made, I will do my best to address his comments.

For instance, we have personal computers and poorer denizens of this earth do not. Development agencies are very good at exploiting this sense of guilt - which is fairly common in the West. These agencies have do-good agendas, well-meaning no doubt, but more focused on their own survival than anything else. One thing common to practically all these agencies is that they actually believe that Western technology can alleviate any and all problems in the Third World.

As proven time and again, technology from whatever part of the world can and does alleviate SOME problems in the Third World. Desalination, Purification, Solar Ovens, Solar panels, Cellular Phones, are all great examples.

Similarly, with these agencies, ads of poor children drinking water from a filthy stream are a good way to bring in a stream of donations, which in turn help to keep said agency running. It pays wages for a number of people who can then salve their consciences by convincing themselves that they are doing "good". Helps them to sleep at night, I guess.

Any actual good done, I suppose is irrelevant to your rant, I mean narrative.

And so we come to the One Laptop Per Child project. Not exactly built on the same lines as a project aimed at development in a poorer country, but exploiting many of the same feelings. The initial stated goal was to supply laptops that would cost $US100 to children in underdeveloped countries - Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya, and Pakistan were those which initially signed up to participate.

An actual fact, Bravo.

Associating the project with the idea of "open source" was a wonderful way to get people involved - Red Hat supplies a customised GNU/Linux distribution for the XO - but that idea has now been diluted to some extent by the intrusion of Microsoft which is developing a version of Windows XP to run on the little laptop.

These are the stated principles of the OLPC project.

XO is built from free and open-source software. Our commitment to software freedom gives children the opportunity to use their laptops on their own terms.
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/software/

That part of "on their own terms" requires the XO to be able to run whatever software the child prefers and is capable of running. Microsoft is working as hard as it can to get the XO to run a stripped and gutted version of XP on it. The XO will ship with its own software and the purchasing country can choose to install whatever it likes. For OLPC's official stance on free software please refer to http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_on_open_source_software

Microsoft knows that catching them young is key to creating a whole new generation of Windows users - people who have no choice but to accept whatever the company dishes out.

That's 2 facts, Kudos.

As the OLPC's Ivan Krstic wrote,"To claim we should prohibit XO customers from running XP in the interest of freedom is to claim everyone should be free to make a choice - as long as it's a choice we agree with."

Yeah, what he said.

I don't know about the robustness - when I asked whether my son could drop the laptop from a height of five feet (it is supposed to be able to withstand such a shock), the man who had the laptop on display said "no" very fast.

It wasn't yours? You expected to be able to throw down the display model (possibly the only one) at a conference? I'm shocked they didn't let you hit it with a hammer. For demonstration of its robustness, see David Pogue with his demo unit. Note what happens at 1:25.

The OLPC appears to be on the defensive when approached by the media. I asked Jim Gettys, the vice-president of software, whether he was willing to spend some time talking about it recently while he was in Melbourne. His answer was "maybe." I gave him a time and place but though he showed up, he told me that he had to speak to a number of other people first. I waited for what I considered a reasonable amount of time and then went about my own business.

What you considered to be a reasonable amount of time. You mean as a blogger who wasn't giving a talk at the conference involved in a worldwide organization who had appointments with actual press and possibly people who would help the cause. In other words he had a job to do, and if he could fit you in he would.

Gettys's talk at the Linux conference in Melbourne in January is one of the few for which video is not available on the web. I wonder why. There are slides - with the standard heart-rending pictures of poor children from various countries who apparently will be the beneficiaries of this munificence.

Actually it is 60 pages with a few pictures of children who did receive the XO laptop and a few pictures showing the environment in which they are used. All but one of the pictures of children show well dress schoolchildren working happily on their laptop. In between those pictures is a wealth of information that you dismiss without a word. You can and should download the presentation , actually read it instead of just looking at the pictures and decide for yourself.

(His talk clashed with one delivered by Dirk Hohndel of Intel and I attended the latter).

I can hardly wait to read the incredible story you will write based on a talk you actually attended.

Not every country which has been approached to join the project has looked favourably on Negroponte's advances. Way back in 2006, India categorically rejected the project. The Times of India quoted the ministry of human resources development as saying it was intrigued that no developed country had been chosen to be part of the project "given the fact that most of the developed world is far from universalising the possession and use of laptops among children of 6-12 age group".

Guess you have not seen this then. http://olpc.tv/2008/02/20/khairat-village-kids-show-off-their-xo-laptops/ The Indian government was under the same false impressions you are. Mainly

Technology can only do so much to eradicate deep-rooted cultural and social problems in developing and under-developed countries. You need political action to solve these problems, a laptop will do nothing to help. It may actually do more damage than good by creating wants which people then seek to satisfy by stealing.

If the village has ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD, who is going to steal them?


Try looking at this in a different way. We are not talking about whether we should be supplying these people with food, clean water, electricity, etc OR a laptop. We are talking about spending money on supplying books which are expensive, heavy and easily damaged or an XO for a child. Which does more good? Which is more utilitarian? Which is a better investment? Better yet which is the child more likely to learn from?

Not for nothing is this called a ground-breaking project. They'll have to break a lot of ground in a great many countries to bury all the waste that is left behind as the project's legacy.

Oh, sorry, I thought you were a reasonable person, I see now I was mistaken. You really think this is all being done for a nefarious profit based motivation don't you? It is easy to believe that OLPC is a selfish organization if you are unfamiliar with empathy and selfless acts of human decency. Shame on you sir.


MrCopilot

Free Software is Good, m'Kay

A few days ago a story was posted to FSDaily with the assuming title of "Can we please stop fighting FUD with FUD?" from Free Software Magazine. The gist of the article is the author's opinion that some, especially new, free software users have a habit of spreading FUD (Fear Uncertainty & Doubt) when comparing it to proprietary software.

In some ways he is right. Free Software usually wins on it's merits, if not it's philosophy. But I want to comment on a few of his statements.

If you’re to going run down Microsoft products then you need to be specific. What products suck, why and how do they suck?

Whoa, this may require more space than I really want to devote.

I see a lot of this type of thing that simply shows the proponent has rarely used the product in question. Aside from that, is this really a good argument to make?

It is a great argument, if the ways proprietary software sucks could easily be improved if it was released as free software.

Are we really going to be so arrogant as to imply that free software doesn’t suck at all? By running down the opposition aren’t we implying there are no issues with “our” software?

Excellent point, some free software does suck or has issues or both.
The only problem with this being that when we or someone else complains about how or why free software sucks, someone (the developers, you or anyone else) can come along and address those issues.

The article concludes by throwing down the gauntlet.

I—for one—would like to see more blogs and comments on why free software is good rather than why Microsoft is bad. So let’s start here. Your task is complete the sentence “Free software is good because…” in less than 50 words.

I pick up your gauntlet Mr Cartwright and offer my answer. Ahem...

Free Software is good because it offers you choices unavailable with proprietary software. It also eliminates vendor lock-in, patch dependence, forced upgrades, and per user license policing.

28 Words.

I would like to expound on the word choices above. These Choices or Freedoms give you the ability to :

Study the source code to learn how portions of the software work.

Modify the source code to adapt to your circumstances or fix problems.

Modify the source code to create new works and even compete with the original work.

Distribute the software freely, given that you follow the licensing terms.

Anyone who writes for Free Software Magazine already knows these points, but he felt it necessary to ask for them to be written, rather than write them again. I'm going to join Ryan Cartwright and ask that we all stop the FUD.

I mean really, hasn't Microsoft been through enough?

MrCopilot

Energy Biofuel and Carbon Emmisions

Two new studies are making their way across the web this week examining the environmental impact of the manufacturing biofuels.

Sites are interviewing one of the authors, Joseph Fargione of The Nature Conservancy, to get an authoritative viewpoint. At first glance his arguments appear valid.

"Carbon is the main building block of life, so plants are 50 percent carbon by dry weight," Fargione said. "So when you're looking at a rainforest, there's tons and tons of carbon stored in the plant biomass and in the soils."

When land is cleared either by cutting trees down or by burning, much of that stored carbon is released into the atmosphere.

"Fire releases the carbon directly, as carbon dioxide, and decomposition, when plants decay, that also releases the carbon as carbon dioxide," Fargione explained. "And this carbon dioxide goes into the air as an important greenhouse gas and contributes to global warming."

Large amounts of carbon in these ecosystems are released each year through deforestation and other land conversion.

"Over the last 150 years, 25 percent of our carbon emissions have come from land clearing," Fargione said.

Biofuels from crops such as corn, sugarcane, soybeans and palms require land to grow on. Most of this land must either directly or indirectly come from the destruction of natural ecosystems, because "right now we're asking the world's farmers to feed 6 billion people, and they're doing it on some fixed amount of land," Fargione said. "And if we're also going to produce energy, that requires new land, and that new land has to come from somewhere."

Clearing natural ecosystems, either for farming food crops or growing biofuel crops, creates what Fargione calls a "carbon debt." The initial clearing of the land releases an amount of carbon dioxide that could take decades or centuries to make up for by using biofuels.

LiveScience.com BioFuels Can Be Bad

Can be bad, OK, he has a point, if you clear cut a rainforest, and BURN it, of course you will get a Carbon Debt in the process. Is anyone actually considering this insane tactic? If you are stop it, please. Domestic production here in the US will be faced with no such problem.

Other arguments by Fargione are also overblown. Consider this quote from The New Scientist.

The idea makes intuitive environmental sense – plants take up carbon dioxide as they grow, so biofuels should help reduce greenhouse gas emissions – but the full environmental cost of biofuels is only now becoming clear.

Extra emissions are created from the production of fertiliser needed to grow corn, for example, leading some researchers to predict that the energy released by burning ethanol is only 25% greater than that used to grow and process the fuel.

...When the carbon released by those clearances is taken into account, corn ethanol produces nearly twice as much carbon as petrol.

The New Scientist: Biofuels emissions may be 'worse than petrol'

I can agree with this one. Anyone that argues we should be using Food crops for fuel production is hurting the cause. One only need look at the effects that ethanol has had on corn pricing as of late, for a practical reason why it is a bad idea. Corn and other food products require vast amounts of fertilizer and farm equipment causing an increasing amount of carbon emissions, there is a an environmental reason. However, there are crops that do neither.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) believes that biofuels—made from crops of native grasses, such as fast- growing switchgrass—could reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, curb emissions of the "greenhouse gas" carbon dioxide, and strengthen America's farm economy.

bioenergy.ornl.gov:Biofuels from Switchgrass: Greener Energy Pastures

Switchgrass is a renewable crop, requires planting every 10 years, and uses heavy equipment only during harvest. It also does quite well with little to no fertilizer. These facts are ignored by the study. Instead focusing on worst case scenarios and painting the entire BioFuel industry in a negative light.

Let me be clear about this. Biofuels are not a longterm solution. They are a stopgap measure intended to reduce Co2 emmisions and reduce the dependence on foreign oil.

Getting rid of the combustion engine will take time and courage. Two things that scientist and political watchdogs will tell you we sorely are lacking.

We cannot wait for it, We must act now to reduce emissions and consumption of finite resources we have no control over. Lest we continue down this slippery slope that leaves our children and grandchildren in a very dirty and very violent world.


MrCopilot

Update: I have sent off an email to Mr Fargoine, hoping to get clarification.
He did reply with copies of the two reports. And this response.

The problem with diverting cropland to fuel production is that people have to eat, and so land is converted to food production elsewhere. This is occurring as US farmers switch from soy to corn, increasing soy prices which spurs deforestation of Amazonian rainforest for soy production.

We simply cannot ask the world's farmers to produce food for 6 billion people, and also ask them to produce energy, without using additional land. That land has to come from somewhere. Unfortunately, much of it is coming from natural ecosystems.

What most people don't realize is how much carbon is stored in natural ecosystems. There is three times as much carbon locked up in plants and soils as there is the atmosphere. Land use change cause 20% of our carbon emissions. Any policy to fight climate change must take land use into account, or it won't work.

Unfortunately, the press ignores the biomass ethanol numbers and focuses on the worst case numbers. LArgely because the study emphasizes those points as well.

Here are the two pieces of information that are most important to me.

Barring biofuels produced directly on forest or grassland
would encourage biofuel processors to rely on existing
croplands, but farmers would replace crops by plowing up
new lands. An effective system would have to guarantee that
biofuels use a feedstock, such as a waste product or carbon-
poor lands that will not trigger significant emissions from
land use change.

www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/1151861/DC1

SOM Text
Tables S1 to S3
Appendix A to F
References
17 October 2007; accepted 28 January 2008
Published online 7 February 2008; 10.1126/science.1151861

Take a look at this chart and pay special attention to the far right.

www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/1152747/DC1
Materials and Methods
Tables S1 and S2
References
8 November 2007; accepted 24 January 2008
Published online 7 February 2008; 10.1126/science.1152747

This is exactly what I am talking about. This study should be used to promote prairie biomass ethanol instead of condemning it along with corn ethanol.

Special thanks to Joe for providing the data that helps clear this up. Although I think he should emphasize these points a little better to the media. Even with pointed questions, I had to dig into the reports instead of getting a straight answer.


MrCopilot