perfidy

Today's WSJ (subscription for fulltext), in the Business Technology section, juxtaposes two pieces on the hypergrowth of digital information, discussing its reasons, its effects, and some responses to the growth.

The first piece is a straightforward and informative mini-whitepaper, entitled "Cutting Files Down to Size". It mentions the efforts of Chevron and Credit Suisse to control their information, primarily through implementation of new tools, new methods, and new employee work habits. There's something about an information base that's presently 1.2 petabytes in size, potentially growing by 57% per year, that can focus the minds of management. Add to that the million email messages per day that the 59,000 employee Chevron claims to process, and you're talking some serious data. So much data, perhaps, that's it's not even possible to glean the information from it. A veritable flood.

The primary solutions discussed are conceptually simple:

• Get people to pay attention to the amount by which they're increasing the deluge
• Put systems in place to eliminate redundancy, such as using Microsoft's well-reviewed SharePoint server, ensuring that even the worst PowerPoint slide decks are only stored once
• Admitting, and getting data creators to admit, that not all information is equally valuable

All excellent steps, though both expensive and difficult to implement. Totally aside from the grotesque knock-on effects of continually increasing technology infrastructure to store all new information, the real benefit from such efforts is to remove potential sources of background noise; the unimportant, the duplicative, and the no-longer-operative. "Data" is both easy and not intrinsically valuable - it's "information" that's both difficult and valuable, and too much data can obscure the information. Best of luck to the contestants in slaying their particular dragons.

The companion piece, on the same page, in Lee Gomes' "Talking Tech" column was the more intriguing of the two. Entitled "Computers Should Be Taught To Let Certain Memories Go", it contained an interview with Harvard KSG professor Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, and was among the more thought-provoking pieces in the entire day's paper.

Mr. Mayer-Schoenberger's thesis is this:

Human beings ... weren't designed to remember everything we ever learned, and sometimes are better off when we forget. Computers, he adds, should as a result be taught to let some memories go.
...
We are biologically hard-wired to selectively remember. But in moving into a digital age, we are now surrounding ourselves with tools that have inversed (sic) that.
...
How does this make life different?

In the predigital age, we might have called someone who knew a person we were interested in learning about, got them to tell us about the person. And we would get a quick picture -- but not a complete and comprehensive picture of each and every piece of communication or behavior that the person did over the past 20 years. I think we have lost something by moving from that sort of short encapsulation toward a complete picture that provides us with all the details, the sort that over time, we as a society, and as human beings, tend to forget.

But what's the problem with that?

Things that happened 10 or 15 years ago might have happened to a different person. Therefore, we should put less weight on what we did 15 years ago than we would do now. In the past, our brains did this automatically for us by forgetting it. But we haven't been able to develop another evolutionary method, another method by which we can weigh things that happened further in the past differently from those that happened more recently.

(ellipses mine)

Interesting theory, and one that makes some rational sense. I can't speak for anyone but myself on the subject, but I'm surely not the same person today as I was 15 years ago, and would want any judgment of me weighted more on the current me than the one from decades ago.

The (mild) shocker in the piece, however, was this, his prescription for a solution:

My proposal is that we have a law that mandates that software coders build into software a better ability for people to let their digital tools forget, if they so wish. Right now, both Windows as well as Mac OS have a huge amount of meta data that they keep track of for each file that we use: "Date Created," "Owner," and so on. So I suggest that we add another type of meta data: "Expiration Date."

Conceptually, he has a point - that would be at least a potential solution to the problem he's laid out. Why the rush to what I can guarantee would be massively ineffectual legal efforts, I wondered? For starters, I presumed it's because he's an associate professor with Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, whose faculty, perhaps by definition, thinks more abstractly and less rationally than, say, Harvard Business School's must. Then I visited his faculty page at KSG:

...He advises businesses, governments, and international organizations on regulatory and policy issues. He holds a bunch of law degrees, including one from Harvard, and an MS (Econ) from the London School of Economics.

That explains it. Ignoring any questions about how many law degrees one can effectively use, the "bunch" he holds appear to have been enough to outweigh any pragmatism learnt at LSE.

(also posted at issuesblog.com)

Certainly not the tenants of this fine abode:

For 20p/night, this too can be yours. (via Z, my Beirut correspondent)

It looks like Cold Fusion is returning from the outer darkness of fringe science, where it had been condemned by legions of right thinking scientists from 1989 on. Some pointy-heads at the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego have achieved a reproducible sort of room temperature fusion:

Cold fusion has gotten the cold shoulder from serious nuclear physicists since 1989, when Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann were unable to substantiate their sensational claims that deuterium nuclei could be forced to fuse and release excess energy at room temperature. Spawar researchers apparently kept the faith, however, and continued to refine the procedure by experimenting with new fusionable materials.

Szpak and Boss now claim to have succeeded at last by coating a thin wire with palladium and deuterium, then subjected it to magnetic and electric fields. The researchers have offered plastic films called CR-39 detectors as evidence that charged particles have emerging from their reaction experiments.

The Spawar method shows promise, particularly in terms of being easily reproduced and verified by other institutions. Such verification is essential to widespread acceptance of the apparent breakthrough, an important precursor to scientists receiving the necessary funding to fuel additional research in the field.

Maybe we will have our Mr. Fusion after all.

...that Barack Obama was correct when he singled out the most important problem that we, the people of the United States of America, need to deal with:

"The biggest enemy I think we have in this whole process (and why I'm so glad to see a lot of young people here, young in spirit if not young in age)--the reason I think i'ts [sic] so important, is because one of the enemies we have to fight--it's not just terrorists, it's not just Hezbollah, it's not just Hamas--it's also cynicism," Barack Obama told a reception after the AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] policy conference last night.

Mr. Obama, I'd like to introduce you, via the May 2, 2007 Star-Ledger, to former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey:

Former Gov. James E. McGreevey has started the process to become a priest in his newly adopted Episcopal faith and has been accepted into a three-year seminary program starting this fall.

[wik] As an added bonus, one of the very few commenters on that story who actually seemed to be supportive of McGreevey (or McCreepy, as he was referred to a time or two) was able to inject into the conversation some of that delicious truthiness we all crave:

Reader11722 says...

McGreevey has a right to become whatever he wants. We should not censor his free expressions. After all, censorship is becoming America's favorite past-time. The US gov't (and their corporate friends), already detain protesters, ban books like "America Deceived" from Amazon and Wikipedia, shut down Imus and fire 21-year tenured, BYU physics professor Steven Jones because he proved explosives, thermite in particular, took down the WTC buildings. Free Speech forever (even for McGreevey). Last link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):

America Deceived (book)

Posted on 05/02/07 at 2:22PM

Of course, we live in a fascist dictatorship, which is why "Reader11722" was immediately collected and shipped off to a re-education facility. Free speech forever, indeed! Even for, nay, especially for, utter dipshits.

Not that any thing like that ever happened last time. Nor did we run up a four hundred dollar bar tab for four people. Nor did I pass out in the metro.

It has arrived! This weekend, as some of you may be aware, is the second annual Milblogging conference. Our friend Murdoc is going to be a panelist this year, kudos to him, and tonight is the mandatory heavy drinking preliminaries. Murdoc, Cat, Rachelle, Blackfive and Steve Schippert of Threatswatch will be joining yours truly for some pre-cocktail hour festivities before heading to the official cocktail hour. If you're in DC, email me and I'll give you details on where to meet if you'd like to join in.

My only regret is that my "No one reads your crappy blog" t-shirt did not arrive in time for the festivities.

The Russian tradition of matryoshka nesting dolls is descended from the medieval practice of burying the dead in concentric circles around the corpses of the previously deceased family members.

It seems that Hugo Chávez could take a lesson on the definition of insanity from Ben Franklin. In his defense, it's not that Chávez is repeatedly trying something that's previously failed for him, just something that's failed every other time a state actor has attempted to put it into place. Perhaps it's just insanity by proxy, then.

Of course, I'm talking about his aggressive advancement of the long-vaunted "Bolivarian Revolution". From the Mother Jones article linked left:

To his increasingly frustrated political opponents in Venezuela, Chavez, a former army colonel, is a leftist demagogue who stirred up a wave of class and racial resentments and rode it to the presidency, and who, in office, has dealt himself new powers at every chance, on his way to becoming an out-and-out caudillo. And to a certain school of international opinion, exemplified by The Economist magazine, Chavez is an wacky utopian who sooner or later will run the Venezuelan economy into the ground.

That introductory paragraph leads into an October 2005 interview with Richard Gott, a former correspondent for the London Guardian who seems knowledgeable and sympathetic to the fiery populism that sometimes seems the prime illuminating factor for Latin American progressive governments. The interview was done in support of his then-updated book, "Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution":

...the first account in English to place Chavez in historical and intellectual perspective. In Gott’s sympathetic account, Chavez is a magnetic personality of the Clintonian type, “a genuinely original figure in Latin America,” a radical left-wing nationalist, to be sure, but a pragmatic improviser, and certainly no dogmatic socialist.

Among his statements during the interview, you'd find:

Okay, it's true that Chavez, for the first time this year, has used the word "socialism"—he talks about a "21st Century Socialism"—but he's given absolutely no indication that he wants to emulate Soviet socialism, Cuban socialism, or indeed the sort of state capitalism that existed in Europe for much of the late 20th century. {...} I think he [Chávez] still recognizes the significance of the ideas of Bolivar. He's more interested in culture than in economics. All leftist revolutions in the past have been based on an economic restructuring of society.

Whoops. Looks like Mr. Gott spoke too soon. Because the wacky utopian, contrary to Gott's expectations, seems to have moved even farther left, embracing something that looks a lot like Soviet/Cuban socialism, and has recently chosen to dispense with even the veneer of normal government. 

Last week, as reported in the WSJ, he took steps to nationalize the remaining bits of the Venezuelan oil industry that were still in private hands, handing control of them to PDVSA, the state oil company.

The flamboyant leader set the worker's holiday as a deadline for the companies involved to transfer the facilities to state firm Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA. This past week, five of the six companies agreed to hand over the keys: Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., BP PLC, Total SA, and Statoil ASA. ConocoPhillips was the only holdout, but in the end will have no choice.

And when they said ConocoPhillips would have no choice, they weren't kidding. From today's Houston Business Journal:

Venezuelan officials vowed to boot ConocoPhillips Inc. out of their country Thursday if the Houston-based oil giant doesn't cooperate in nationalizing its multibillion-dollar assets in the Orinoco reserve.

Of the five companies with major oil investments in Venezuela, ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) has been the only one to refuse to sign an agreement ceding financial control to Venezuela as part of President Hugo Chávez's plan to take back his country's largest economic driver.

{...}

Alongside the other companies, ConocoPhillips participated in an operational transfer Tuesday ordered by Chavez, but it's the unsigned agreement that has Venezuelan officials steaming.

Reuters reported that Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez told state television that ConocoPhillips has been knocked to the lowest priority in the negotiations, and went on to say that the OPEC nation would not offer cash concessions or assume debt.

Ramirez also said that if talks break down, Venezuela will assume a 100 percent financial stake.

Conoco has already ceded physical control, mind you; they just haven't signed the agreement Chávez wants indicating that they think it was a great thing to do, and wondering why they hadn't thought of it earlier, on their own, apparently. The end result could be their expulsion from the country, and the loss of 100% of their assets there. The deal breaker, of course, is that entire "no concessions, no assumption of debt" thing. As it should be.

The six private companies whose assets have been expropriated have stated their intention to stay in the market, for the time being. Why? Because they don't want to completely lose their business opportunities and investment in a project that, overall, produces something like 600,000 barrels/day of oil, but perhaps more so because they have no expectation that PDVSA will be able to proceed without their help. From the 4/28/2007 WSJ article in which the nationalizations were originally reported:

PDVSA, saddled by Mr. Chávez's social spending demands, is already struggling to keep production from falling in other parts of the country. If it bungles the operations at the Orinoco, that could be bad news for the oil market.

A rational observer might ask what this all has to do with insanity, even though the autocracy referenced in the title of this post seems clearly explained.

Chávez, notwithstanding Gott's complete misreading of his intentions several years ago, isn't stopping with the oil industry. Having paid off all debts to the World Bank and IMF, he's pulling out of both organizations, citing his feeling that

...the two organisations are implements of US imperialism, with their lending policies perpetuating poverty across the world.

It's a symbolic gesture, then, but symbolic of what? He's chosen the US as his stalking horse, the imperialist yin to his socialist yang, and he needs to use that imaginary relationship as a prop. From the other side of the table, the US ignores him assiduously, not commenting very much on anything he does, partly because Venezuela, while providing 15% of US oil supplies, really doesn't have the capacity to affect the US in any meaningful way. And partly because I'm sure that the US basically ignoring him must drive him crazy.

And, having already nationalized the telecom and electricity industries and threatened the same in the hospital market, he's not stopping with the oil industry asset-thievery, or the withdrawal from the IMF and World Bank and a mandated 20% rise in the minimum wage. Next on the list? The banks and Sidor, a steel company. What's driving all this, one might wonder?

"Privately owned banks must prioritize low-cost financing for Venezuela's industry. If they don't want to do this they can leave, they can give us the banks, we can nationalize them."

and this, about Sidor:

"If the company Sidor ... does not immediately agree to change this process, they will obligate me to nationalize it," Chavez said. "I prefer not to," Chavez added, as he ordered Mining Minister Jose Khan to immediately head over to Sidor's headquarters and come back with a recommendation with 24 hours.

"Sidor has to produce and give priority to our national industries ... and at low cost," he said.

Reminiscent of the old Mafia stereotype, "Nice store you've got here - a shame if something were to, uh happen to it"? Quite a bit. Command economy? Unquestionably. That's been tried before, of course, and has never led to sustainable success. Its aftermath is poverty, and without regard to Venezuela's supposedly massive oil reserves, it will do the same in Venezuela. And it's already started - see the article "Venezuela — Inflation -> Price Controls -> Shortages" at The Liberty Papers, or this Reuters story pegging inflation through April at nearly 20% per annum. Huge inflation in Venezuela's not unprecedented, as seen in a 1989 NYTimes piece pegging inflation that year between 65% and 70%. But the country's exit from the international government lending system seems ill-timed, because they're going to need help eventually, and perhaps sooner rather than later, with the trajectory they're on.

The odd thing about this is that Chávez gives every impression of meaning well for his people, and has been rewarded by ultimately credible, if perhaps a bit inflated, majorities in the last several elections (recall and re-election). Meaning well and doing well are of course two completely separate things, and he also gives every impression of taking his country down a road which from he won't be able to navigate back as it all falls down around his ears.

He's not implementing one of those fuzzy-soft socialist systems commonly found in Europe - this isn't socialism, it's communism. It's got socialism at its core, but add in the enforced state control and the mandated indoctrination, and the only difference between Venezuela and the USSR is the gulags. Well, the gulags and the oil. And the language. But it will fail, and that will happen without overt involvement from what he presumes to be his greatest enemy, the United States. Chávez's actual greatest enemies are economic reality and a willful ignorance of history in pursuit of the utopia he seeks.

Utopia is as unattainable as is perpetual motion, and for similar reasons. Notwithstanding the breathless reporting, low-rent activism, and opinionating in the years since Chávez came to power, history won't be kind to this attempt, either.

(also posted at issuesblog.com)

I've been meaning to get this for Buckethead for about a year and a half. Since I haven't yet, I'm just gonna own that I'm not going to. So I'll post it instead.

Happy whatever-day-is-significant-to-you-for-which-a-present-such-as-this -might-have-been-warranted-and-I've-repeatedly-missed, Buckethead!

If anyone cares to surpass the limits of my sloth and che...ah, thriftyness...it's here.

Company officers in Iraq are keeping gainfully employed by dreaming up names for their unit's operations; personal fave above.

Since they mention they're getting a little dry on new thoughts, particularly as they strive to incorporate the sentiment or actual word "Polar" in there somewhere, I might recommend Nordic themes:

Operation Ragnarok
Operation Fimbulvintr
Operation Niflheim
Operation Jotun
Operation Asgard
Operation Witch's Tit

And allow me to make a submission on Johno's behalf: Operation Penguin Patrol

Full article at today's Stars n Stripes here.

[wik] Also, if they tacked "Operation Polar" in front of most song titles by Amon Amarth, the young captains would be in good shape.

[alsø wik] Matter of fact, it might be cool to use Amon Amarth as their unofficial polar soundtrack, what with the vikings and blood and the relentless snow and ice. Just sayin'.

Emperor Buckethead I. That has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? When I become Emperor of the United States, there’s a few things I want to change around here.

Last weekend, my mom came out to help celebrate the birthday of my son, who turns four this coming weekend. As part of the bag of gifts that she brought out for greedboy, she included a couple of the new dollar coins, the ones with George Washington’s portrait on them. I was underwhelmed with this latest effort from the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.

The coin feels like what Monopoly money would feel like if the game used coins. It’s light, as if it had a plastic core. The sheen is distinctly unreminiscent of gold. The quality of the art work is poor, I mean really, from some angles it looks like poor George is missing his eyes instead of his teeth. Zombie George is not what I want on my dollar coin. The fonts are ridiculous. And once again, we have a dollar coin the same size as a quarter.

Now, I am in favor of dollar coins. Ever since I spent time in England, I have been for dollar coins. The pound coin is a nifty thing, and we by rights should have an equivalent. A large value coin that is easily distinguishable from other coins. This, our government has signally failed to provide for us for far too long.

One of the problems, of course, is inflation. Precious metals, the ones that make the best coins, are now far to expensive to use in coins – people would melt them down for the metal rather than use them as currency. That’s why our dollar coins are made of anodized aluminum, and our quarters are made of tin foil.

To make things right, we can’t just make better coins. We must make more far reaching changes to our system of currency. To wit, we must revalue the currency 10:1. That is to say, ten current dollars would equal one new dollar. With this simple change, we can return to decent coins.

A quick peak at the internets reveals some key facts:

Gold= $21.63/g
Silver= $.43/g
Copper= $.008/g

Penny= 2.5g (3.1g before 1982)
Nickel= 5g
Dime= 2.3g
Quarter= 5.7g
Pound Coin= 9.5g

So what does it all mean?

• A ten gram gold coin would be worth over $200 now. But, under the new dispensation, it would be worth $20. The return of the $20 gold coin.
• A silver quarter would be $2.44, or very nearly .25 in the new order.
• Current dimes in silver would be $.99, or almost exactly ten cents.
• Old half dimes were made of silver, and weighed 1.3g - $.56, or 5.6 cents in the new money. Perfect.
• A 3g penny, made of pure copper, would be worth about 2.5 cents. Double the size, and you have 5 cents current currency, or ½ cent in the new system. (The old large penny was 10g.) Our lowest denomination coin would therefore be 5 cents, and the eliminate the penny crowd would be simultaneously thwarted and victorious.

So, the new coinage:

• Twenty Dollar – pure gold, 9.25g, about the size of a British Pound coin. Worth $200 in current money. Obverse: Liberty with sword and shield; Reverse: “Give me Liberty or give me death”
• Ten Dollar – pure gold, 4.75g, about the size of a nickel. Worth $100 in current money. Obverse: Eagle; Reverse: U.S. Space Series - Armstrong on Moon, Mercury Capsule, Gemini Capsule, Docked lander and Apollo Capsule, Space Shuttle, Skylab, Voyager, Burt Rutan and SpaceShipOne… $10:
• Five Dollar – pure gold, 2.5g, about the size of a dime. Worth $50 in current money. Obverse: Gouverneur Morris; Reverse: Seal of the United States of America.
• Dollar – gold/silver alloy, 8.75g, about the size of a pound coin. Worth $10 in current money. Obverse: Grizzly Bear; Reverse: American warplanes series: P-38 Lightning, P-51 Mustang, F-6 Hellcat, F-86 Super Sabre, F-4 Phantom II, F-15 Eagle, F-14 Tomcat, F-18 Bug, F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning II...
• Half Dollar – gold/silver alloy, 4.5g, about the size of a nickel. Worth $5 in current money. Obverse: John Hancock; Reverse: Liberty Bell.
  2¢
• Quarter Dollar – pure silver, 6g, about the size of a quarter. Worth $2.50 in current money. Obverse: Buffalo; Reverse: American Generals series: Patton, Sherman, Grant, Washington, Sheridan, MacArthur, Eisenhower, … Lee, Jackson, no Omar Bradley.
• Dime – pure silver, 2.5g, about the size of a dime. Worth $1 in current money. Obverse: George Washington (from current quarter); Reverse: U.S. Capitol.
• Half Dime – pure silver, 1.25g, about half the size of a dime, and the size of the old 19thC half dimes. Worth 50¢ in current money. Obverse: Walking Liberty; Reverse: Independence Hall.
• Two Cents – copper/silver alloy, 5g, about the size of a nickel. Worth 20¢ in current money. Obverse: John Adams; Reverse: Statue of Liberty.
• Cent – copper/silver alloy, 2.5g, about the size of a penny. Worth 10¢ in current money. Obverse: Abraham Lincoln (image of his statue in the memorial); Reverse: Lincoln Memorial.
• Half Cent – pure copper, 6g, about the size of a quarter. Worth 5¢ in current money. Obverse: Liberty Head; Reverse: Wreath.

Italicized coins would be relatively rare. The Gold/Silver alloy would be about 4% gold. Every coin will have the motto “Liberty” and the year on the front; and “United States of America,” “E Pluribus Unum,” and the value on the back. The value will always be indicated in words, not numbers. Americans should be literate. The series of coins is not a bad idea, but we need some new topics. The idea of the Buffalo is cool, and looks good, too. So I combined the two. The Buffalo, the Grizzly and the Eagle each get a coin and a series.

And while we’re at it, why not change the folding money? I think the bills should be a little bit bigger, like the old money before 1929. Maybe about 7 by 3, instead of the current 6.14 x 2.61 inches. As for colors, screw the new colors. We can add enough other counterfeit countermeasures to return to the traditional green for the front of the bill. On the back, though, we could, conceivably, use other colors. Some of the older bills had blue, orange or even red in addition to black for the reverse side. I’m open to change there.

I’ve never been completely satisfied with the choices on our bills. Jackson was a terrible president, and doesn’t deserve a place on the $20 bill. Hamilton was important, but he’s worn out his welcome.

I think we need really large denomination bills again. I know that electronic transfers make them largely unnecessary, but the idea is just too cool to pass up. The new bills should have a portrait on the front, and a painting that is relevant to the portrait on the back. And the portrait should have a oval border around it, like we used to have.

So, a new order for the paper money:

• One Dollar Bill – ($10 in current money); Obverse: George Washington; Reverse: Washington Crossing the Delaware.
• Two Dollar Bill – ($20 in current money); Obverse: Thomas Jefferson; Reverse: Declaration Signing. (Same as current $2 bill.)
• Five Dollar Bill – ($50 in current money); Obverse: Abraham Lincoln; Reverse: Surrender at Appomattox. (Screw the southern prideniks.)
• Ten Dollar Bill – ($100 in current money); Obverse: FDR; Reverse: Engraving of Iwo Jima flag-raising. (Screw the japs.)
• Twenty Dollar Bill – ($200 in current money); Obverse: Ronald Reagan; Reverse: Engraving of the Berlin Wall being torn down. (Same to the commies.)
• Fifty Dollar Bill – ($500 in current money); Obverse: Albert Einstein; Reverse: Engraving of the Trinity nuke test. (Same to the enviro-anti-nuke weenies.)
• Hundred Dollar Bill – ($1000 in current money); Obverse: Nikola Tesla; Reverse: Engraving of a couple Tesla Coils going nuts. (Same to Thomas Edison.)
• Five Hundred Dollar Bill – ($5000 in current money); Obverse: Wilbur and Orville Wright; Reverse: Engraving of the first flight at Kitty Hawk.
• Thousand Dollar Bill – ($10,000 in current money); Obverse: Werner von Braun; Reverse: Engraving of a Saturn V rocket lift off. (Screw anyone who says von Braun was a Nazi. Maybe he was, but he became a good American.

How cool would it be to have a $500 bill with a picture of nuclear explosion on it? Or pay for groceries at the whole foods store with a Reagan twenty? Or carry fifty dollars in change in your pocket instead of a reinforced canvas bag, and each coin with a picture of an American warbird? This new money would kick ass.

So there it is, the Buckethead plan for American monetary reform.