MAR 04
lduh !
The suits have been relentlessly dumbing-down TV output in the UK for a
decade or so. I guess they've been doing it longer in the US.
But now they’re beginning to get twitchy about ratings losses. Surveys
in the US have shown that viewers in the 18-34 agegroup are deserting at the
rate of 12% a year. In the 18-24 group it’s a staggering 20% a year !
The execs blame the fall on the availability of computer games and the internet – but there’s another possibility . . . Could it be that the younger audiences are getting wised-up to the fact that middle-aged dumb plonkers are feeding them a diet of feathers and tallow – just like the cows which go into their burgers ?
The suits could get ratings back up again if they reversed the dumbing trend - but that needs imagination, creativity, and harder work – which costs money ( the dumber channels fired most of the expensive imaginative / creative types years back.)
Much more likely they'll opt for more shows like 'Celebrity Topless Ladies Football Autosport Extreme Challenge' . . . If they can get sponsorship of course.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/29/
strike a light
Well, it finally happened. A bit delayed ( it was supposed to come in on Jan 1st ), but better late than never. It’s now illegal to light up a cigarette in any public bar in Southern Ireland ( Éire ). The owner’s of the bar will be liable to heavy fines if they allow smoking, so, in a way, the Irish government is forcing them to act as unpaid policemen – not an enviable job.
No such brave legislation for the UK administered north of the island though. The UK government has had a string of ministers, and even prime ministers, who have been well and truly plugged-in to the tobacco industry, acting as ‘consultants’ and board members. Because the industry is so huge, it can afford to make political alliances and generous donations wherever and whenever they wish. ( including lucrative grants to ‘independent’ UK universities doing ‘research’ into tobacco )
Aside from the quasi-corruption, the UK government figured out long ago that smokers save the country money. Although the smoke-induced healthcare costs are gigantic, especially with regard to medium-term care of cancer and emphysema patients – the fact is that on average, smokers die considerably younger. That way, the government saves a fortune on pensions payouts. Small wonder then that the government has been reluctant to ban smoking.
The tobacco companies have seen the writing on the wall though, and are more or less resigned to falling sales in the ‘developed’ world. But, thanks to the increasing ease with which transnational companies can trade globally, they’re not overly worried – there are plenty more lungs to fry. Billions in fact.
http://www.tobacco.org/news/153688.html
scram
NASA have successfully tested their new Scramjet engine which propelled a half-plane/half-rocket at 5000 mph or so. The engine only operated for 10 seconds though, which equates to about $23Million per second.
The technology was first proposed fifty years ago, but, not surprisingly, is hard to realise because the devices can’t be tested in wind tunnels. Even more unhelpfully , the engines don’t begin to work until they are travelling through the air at 3000 mph or so. That’s why the NASA version was strapped to a rocket. ( the rocket, by the way, has a cruising speed some three times faster than the scramjet )
Media worldwide have been helpfully regurgitating the press releases without question, and most stories mention that oneday, it might be possible to travel from, say, London to Sydney in two hours. They seem to have forgotten that the only supersonic passenger aircraft which has ever operated, Concorde, has just been scrapped. It never achieved it’s original design-goals because of the horrendous sonic-booms it created. Exactly the same problem will face any new supersonic aircraft. ( Rockets, which leave the Earth’s atmosphere don’t create booms, but the scramjet, which uses oxygen from the air, can’t get that high.)
So why are NASA, the UK, Australia, Japan and others all rushing to develop it? Here’s a few clues. The new engine was strapped to a Pegasus™ rocket, developed to put military payloads into orbit at short notice. The rocket was strapped to a B52 bomber. The bomber took off from an airforce base.
Not convinced ? Have a look at some recent aerospace developments to get a
flavour of where the money is . . .
http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/
Crystal balls up.
The TSA ( Transport Security Administration ) caused an Amercian Airlines flight to be cancelled on Friday. They had ‘information’ that a suspect device was aboard the plane. A search was carried out, but luckily, nothing was found. The inspection did, however, force the flight to be cancelled, because the crew had exceeded their permitted work-hours.
Nothing too unusual about the story in the current safety-conscious climate - except that the ‘information’ came from a psychic.
The TSA refused to name the seer or reveal any info about him / her / it, but we can deduce from the foregoing that the entity concerned might not be going on a long journey with a tall dark stranger anytime soon – not on AA anyway.
Source: Associated Press News Service.
Wykehamists wired
If you were trying to think of a high-tech location, Winchester might not be first on your list. But residents of the city now have access to internet broadband services – via their electricity supply. Fifty substations have been fitted with the transponders that send and receive the signals along the 240V powergrid.
It’s an old technique, and it’s already possible to buy many devices which use the ‘signals-down-the-powerlines’ trick, such as baby monitors, burglar alarms etc etc. It might seem counter intuitive to send data up the same cables which power your cooker, but the wires are already there, so why not send signals down ‘em.
Only one slight possible problem occurs to me. Power cables radiate energy – bigtime. There have even been prosecutions in the UK because individuals had been ‘stealing’ electricity from overhead cables simply by running coils of wire around their houses and picking up the radiated energy. So, it would seem likely that anyone with the right equipment would be able to pick up the datastream without having to physically tap into the cables. In other words, a security level which is fine for your crying baby monitor – perhaps not so good for transmitting your credit card details.
I’m sure that the company supplying the service will have thought this through, and have built-in a bi-directional encryption system which prevents snooping . . . Oddly though, their ten page close-print ‘terms an conditions’ .pdf which you are “strongly advised to read in it’s entirety” does appear to imply that they won’t accept any liability for anyone hacking into the system. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the legal jargon.
Here’s the link. You figure it out.
http://www.southern-electric.co.uk/
solid fuel
Several universities around the globe are racing to develop biofuels for aircraft. That way, the airlines can exempt themselves from blame regarding the CO2 their planes generate during a flight. The flavour of the year is soya oil apparently. Although the jet engines themselves can happily run on the stuff, there is a big problem – the oil freezes at around 0 degrees C. Since the operating temperature of much of the aircraft’s structure can drop to –40 degrees at high altitude , normal soya oil would turn to jelly in the fueltanks.
So, all the universities are struggling to come up with various blends and distillates which stay liquid at low temperatures. Unfortunately, this is a wasteful and difficult process, and even the best solution so far still uses a blend of 60% aviation fuel with the soya.
Er . . . perhaps I’ve misunderstood something, but don’t jet engines tend to get a little on the hot side when they’re running ? If you had a problem with fuel freezing, why not just pipe some of the abundant excess heat through the tanks and keep them warm . . .
Case solved. Next !
Helpfully regurgitated press releases shock.
( Yet another) 3-D display for computers has been announced. This one is from the Kodak Corp.
3-D displays have been around for decades, and usually feature special LCD shutter-glasses which alternately switch between left and right images to give the effect. They work very well, but, of course, all manufacturers would love to invent a new tech which can work without glasses. Again, there are ways of doing this, most relying on the old ridged transparent overlay method beloved by cornflake manufactures since the 1950’s. This lenticular technique was never very convincing then, and, not surprisingly, still isn’t.
If you were to do a websearch for “floating balls of light” you’d find links to dozens of news-sites reprinting, almost verbatim, the Kodak press release for their new invention. The stories all read as though the problem has been finally cracked, and we’ll all be sitting on our sofas watching 3-D TV in a year or so . . .
If however, you’d like a reality-check, try this.
http://optics.org/articles/news/10/3/15/1/
nice try, but no 3-D cigar.
Terms and Conditions ( part 2 )
It started with Shrink-Wrap. When vendors sell a hard-copy of a piece of software to you, they wrap the box, or seal the envelope in such a way that the act of opening the pack commits you to the ‘contract’ written on the seal. As well all know, the contract basically says :
“ We don’t guarantee one bit of this software, which may be a piece of half-baked, inefficient, unstable nonsense which is good for nothing. But, now we’ve got your money – so tough ”
Then came ‘Click-Wrap ’ whereby the customer is presented, either at download or at installation time, with an on-screen button which says ‘I Agree’. By clicking the button you are ( in theory ) agreeing to be legally bound by the small print which precedes it – and which you will almost certainly have *not* read.
Personally, I always assume that anyone with a huge enough wad of cash could challenge these ‘contracts’ in court – because they are clearly unreasonable. Reasonableness doesn’t usually feature very highly in matters concerning Corporate Interests v. Joe Public. In practice, the interpretation of the law is very heavily skewed in favour of the corporations, in fact, the laws are often designed that way from the very beginning. ( Don’t take my word for it, just read ‘ Captive State ’ by George Monbiot. )
But now things have gone a step further. Websites run by transnational corporations are now claiming that just by ‘browsing’ a site you are entering into a contract with the company ! For example I recently ‘browsed’ a site called www.sony.co.uk The ‘contract’ which Sony says I have agreed to, prevents me from giving a direct link to the small print – but if you were to go to the site and press the ‘Terms and Conditions’ button at the bottom-right of the homepage – you’d find it. All 7,988 words of it. That’s around 12 A4 pages of densely packed print.
It’s the kind of document which I guess might take a highly qualified contract / copyright lawyer a good day or so to read, interpret and fully digest. To expect the average web-user to take the time to read it, let alone understand its implications, is clearly ludicrous.
I’m not a contract lawyer, but I can’t think of a single example of any other situation whereby someone is deemed to have entered into a contract just by looking at something – especially not a seven thousand word one. And yes, I did search for the ‘I do not agree’ button – there isn’t one. I hate to disappoint Sony’s legal affairs office, but, although they may feel I’ve entered into a contract with them – Sorry, but ???????? ( that’s Japanese for ‘er . . . I don’t think so’ )
Of course, the company can say whatever it wants to on its site, and one assumes that their own lawyers believe it’s all perfectly reasonable. My point though, is this.
What message does it send to the customer ? Take a look at the page, and see what message you get.
anyone there?
Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft has donated $13.5M towards the building of a new radiotelescope. Following recent trends in telescope construction, the machine will be an array of smaller dishes linked electronically rather than one huge dish. Although the resolution of an array is slightly poorer than one giant ‘scope of the same area, the practicalities of construction are much less problematic, and so the cost is reduced dramatically.
The machine will be used to receive signals from deep-space in an attempt to better understand the origins of the universe. At the same time, it will continue the trying to find possible extra-terrestrial civilisations for the non-profit SETI organisation. SETI recently completed a nine year project in which they scanned almost 800 nearby stars for signs of transmissions - but found nothing. But of course there are more than enough stars out there to keep them occupied for the rest of eternity.
SETI call their new field of research ‘Astrobiology’, if they ever find anything, they will presumably be able to coin some further words such as Astrosociology, Astroeconomics, and ultimately AstroMediaStudies.
http://www.seti-inst.edu/about_us/
swipe yourself
The term ‘mobile phone’ might have to revised soon. There are already ‘phones’ which incorporate a still camera, a video camera, a hard-drive, an mp3 player, a compass, a decibel meter, GPS, a web-browser, a thermometer etc etc . Now there are some which read the controversial RFID tags beloved by big-brother conspiracy theorists.
http://www.nokia.com/cda1?id=55056
So, not far into the future, if you own one, you will be able to find out where you are, but, more importantly, who you are . . .
Some dim www.
The Chinese government has closed down a blogging website ( www.Blogbus.com ) after somebody posted an entry critical of the government.
It’s hard to divine exactly what the authorities are trying to achieve, because now of course, fifty times more people have heard of Blogbus than they would have done otherwise. Not only that, but unless they intend to ban every future occurrence of criticism, they can now be guaranteed even more published discord.
Trying to censor the www is like trying to stop pigeons landing in a city square. You’ve either got to glass-over the whole area, or give up. They can either pull the plug on the entire www and jam any airborne electronic links – or leave it alone to grow in the unruly way it always does.
blue words
The FCC is responsible for the regulation of all things which broadcast electronically in the US. This includes everything from interference generated by your pop-up toaster to bad-language on TV. Now they have decided that NBC broke a federal law by allowing Bono to swear on a live broadcast of an awards ceremony. No penalty will be imposed this time, but the level of fines is running at about $0.5M a year, so small broadcasters are obviously going to be fairly careful about things.
It must be pretty hard for them to keep their eye on the ball swearword-wise, because language changes so fast. It was only 60 odd years ago when ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn’ barely got past the censors. The film’s producers even had to get Clark Gable to incongruously put the accent on 'give’ to get away with it.
On the other side of the coin ( and the Atlantic ) TV company’s like the UK’s Channel 4 seem to be positively wallowing in expletives. They’ve even launched a special webpage which has recordings of ‘Famous People’s Favourite Swearwords’. To me has all the appeal of listening to schoolboy’s saying ‘Bum’, giggling, and running away. If they’d included a few politicians and religious leaders in their list, it might have been a bit more interesting.
http://www.channel4.com/ads/index1.html
File under ‘errr, great … well … that could come in really useful oneday maybe’
Nasa have announced that they are developing techniques to read ‘subvocal’ speech. Instead of the normal methods of speech recognition, which can recognise errr , speech, this tech recgonises the words via electrodes attached to the neck. The subject thinks of a phrase, and then talks to him/herself quietly, without lip or facial movements, and without being heard.
They apparently have already had some success with a prototype system which can recognise a few dozen words. Nasa says that the technology might be useful in noisy environments where normal speech recognition techniques are problematic.
Errrr. Rrrrrright. Perhaps they haven’t thought of placing a small mike next to the astronaut’s mouth and asking them to talk louder rather than softer. But still, it’s an interesting idea, I’m sure someone somewhere might find a use for it oneday. Perhaps ‘The Men in Black’ won’t have to whisper into their sleeves anymore.
core issue
Rumours have been circulating for a while that Apple is suing Apple. That is, Apple the Beatles record label is suing Apple the computer company. ( Oddly, there seems to be a bit of confusion between the news sites regarding whether there is actually a court case going on, or whether there is just a likelihood of legal action. ). The bizarre side to the story is that Apple ( the Beatles ) already sued Apple ( computers ) before, and won. They got substantial damages ( reputedly $26M ) from the computer firm, who promised that they would never get involved in any music-related field in the future.
You might think that having been hauled through the courts by a bunch of multibillionaires with unlimited access to the most expensive legal firms on the planet would make the computer company a little nervous about winding Apple ( the label ) up again. So, when the computer company decided to call their I-Pod venture ‘AppleMusic.com’ they may perhaps have been just slightly risking things a touch.
There’s always the possibility that the respective legal representation for the two firms might ‘interpret’ the findings of the previous case in different ways – well they would wouldn’t they . . .
Background:
The Beatles label was called ‘Apple Corps’ and was formed in 1968, and was planned to eventually be involved in electronics, film, records, publishing, retailing and even tailoring. It’s history is complicated and different versions of what actually happened appear in different locations. Here’s on site which seems to give a good overview . . .
http://www.beatlemoney.com/applecofacts.htm
The computer company was formed on April Fool’s day 1976, and was apparently named after the cyanide-laced apple which was found ( and then lost ) on the bedside table of Alan Turing, the genius computer visionary and mathematician who committed suicide after being hounded by the UK authorities.
Here’s a site with a company timeline.
http://apple.computerhistory.org/stories/
Update 8th April: The case is apparently going ahead, and will be heard at the High Court in London
oh really ?
Every now and again, some important counter-intuitive non-obvious effect is discovered through research. Or not.
This month’s Journal of the American Medical Association archive gives us the news that an ‘Impaired sense of smell increases risk for certain hazards’.
Researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University found that people who have no sense of smell whatever* can get into trouble in hazardous situations which involve strong smells. Such as, for example, cooking accidents, the ‘ingestion of toxic or spoiled substances’, and of course, gas leaks and fires.
I’ve got a few extra ideas of my own which VCU might like to consider for research.
1) To study the conjecture that persons of below average height would be less likely to injure themselves after a fall onto a hard surface.
2) To investigate the possibility that free flying poisonous insects in the driver’s compartment of road vehicles may contribute to accident rates.
3) To evaluate the effect which proximity to annual research budget renewal dates has on Ig-Nobel prize nominations.
*( a condition which is surprisingly common, especially, I’m lead to
believe, amongst high-flyer bank suits from New York, Popstars and Californian
film execs )
pick me up
There seems to be a bit of confusion about Starbucks’ new idea for selling music via their chain of coffee shops. They announced on Friday that, as of today, their outlets will begin rolling out a new service which will allow customers to get some take-away music with their skinny cap decaf with legs *1.
The press release must have been a little on the vague side ( there’s no info about it in the press section of their website ) because none of the external sites which reported the story seem to have much detail on exactly how the music will actually be dispensed to the punters by the chain’s customologists *2
It looks like they will be providing the data in CD form, so I guess customers will choose the tracks which they want burned while they have their coffee, and by the time they’re ready to go, so is their CD. I would have thought that maybe it would have been better to concentrate on I-Pod style mp3 downloads, but perhaps that will be on offer too.
There don’t seem to be any details either on the charges, but the going rate for a legit mp3 file is around $1 at present, so you could end up spending quite a bit filling up a CD or your mp3 player. The main question must be though – do coffee shops and music sales go together ?
Coffee shop and newspapers – yes
Coffee shop and books – probably
Coffee shop and groceries – perhaps
Coffee shop and hi-tech downloads - hmmmm
*1 to take away
*2 staff
The regular feature : uncanny searches.
Today’s not-quite-right search engine referrals.
1) Artworks of black-holes
2) Dreams + analysis + budgie
3) What uses has a computer?
By chance, I do happen to have some artwork, which I produced a while back, showing a black hole. If the inquirer would like to e-mail me I’ll send a copy – but actually, they’re very easy to photograph oneself – or at least an artistic representation of one is easy to produce. Just use your camera without removing the lens-cap.
Dreams of budgies ? Very straightforward to analyse : except that I would need to know if the budgie was either inside – or outside – a cage.( or even, perhaps, flying free in the Australian outback ). The important factor here isn’t the budgie per-se ; it’s the prevailing conditions with regard to the Gestalt. Without that, it’s simply jejune.
The third one is simple. The main use of a computer is being able to look-up
things on the internet.
bumpy take off
There’s a famous old ad agency chestnut from the 1980’s “Nothing acts faster than Anadin” . It became so famous as a double–entendre that’s it’s now part of the coursework of many English studies. Some claim that the phrase was deliberately twisted to ensured that the customers remembered the pill’s name. Personally, I’m more inclined to think that either A) it was a blunder, or, B) It was an ad agency joke at the expense of their client.
Anyway, here’s another up-to-the minute copywriter’s gem from the international airline : Varig . . .
“The Varig difference begins while our passengers are still on the ground . . . “
Yep, it sure does. A colleague has just spent 24 Hrs at Heathrow hanging about while the airline failed to fix the plane’s autopilot. An unwelcome wait, plagued from beginning to end by confusion and lack of information – so, situation-normal really.
In 1995 new legal requirements will come into force in the EU which will guarantee stipulated financial compensation for flight delays and overbooking – but unfortunately, until then, all the airline has to do is prove that they took reasonable steps to avoid problems – and they’re off the hook.
The new laws will quadruple the penalties airlines have to pay for ‘bumping’. At the moment, many airlines deliberately oversell as much as 10% more seats than are actually available on each plane. They know from experience that around that percentage of passengers won’t turn up for the flight. They’re not obliged to compensate any of these ‘no shows’ ,( although they often will if the passenger can prove very unfortunate personal circumstances ) and so, in effect, they get paid twice for 10% of the seats.
As an example,
A fully booked 777 flying Amsterdam > Los Angeles return, 10% overbooked, will generate an extra ( cost free) €35,000 approx. in bumped fares
Unfortunately then, we can be pretty certain that the new legislation will force the airfares up to compensate – maybe that’s the price that has to be paid to get the ‘old style’ airlines to shape up . . .
Respec !
George Michael has announced he’s not going to sell anymore records – he’s going to give ‘em away. Well, perhaps not give them away, but if he charges for the music then the money will go to charity.
Of course, some cynics may say ‘ Well he can afford to, can’t he . . . ‘, and yes, he sure can. So can Paul McCartney, Sting, Dolly Parton, Bono, Stevie Wonder, Madonna etc etc – but none of them , to my knowledge, has announced that they’ll be donating all their future music–related earnings to charity.
Let’s hazard a guess that his current record label, and the music industry in general, won’t exactly be overjoyed by his announcement. Neither will up-and-coming new talent who haven’t quite reached the ‘I don’t need any more money man’ stage.
Nevertheless, the world would undoubtedly be a fairer, more reasonable, and more entertaining place if more people ( who can afford to ) behaved like George. Well, up to a point obviously.
Hold the front page ( carefully )
It’s really satisfying when you come across a website which works
fast, with a clear layout and no messing-about-delivery.
Take for example :
http://www.titanite.fr/produits.cgi
I mean, you can’t make any mistake with a site like this. ‘Call a spade a spade ‘ as the saying goes. They know what they make, and they let the customers know about it – no messing about.
I might be wrong though, but I get the impression that they probably don’t sell directly to the public. ( I tried to find an ‘e-biz’ ‘pay with your card’ page, but I don’t think they have one. )
I suppose when you look at some of their products, like hand-grenades, multiple grenade launchers, electronic detonators etc – you can see why !
The (French) site even provides translation into English, so we can see, without even having to go to a dictionary, that “Nombre d'éclats (masse 0,3 g)” means “Number of Splinters (weight : 0,3 g)” with regard to their ‘Percussion Munitions’.
So, how many marks out of ten would you give Titanite S.A.?
( Oh, by the way, Associated Press News Service are saying that they made the explosives which killed nearly 200 people in Madrid yesterday. It’s called ‘Titadyn 30 AG’ ( misspelled by AP as ‘Titadine’ ) and you can see all the specifications for it on the same page.)
AP report.
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAZWRZFPRD.html
update:
The same story is now covered in the Guardian, ( with the same anomalous spelling
)
UPDATE Apr 3rd
Here’s an update and error-correction about the explosives used
in the appalling Madrid bombings.
The Washington Times, Guardian and other sources are now saying that the Spanish authorities have ‘changed their mind’ about which type of explosive was used . . . and are now claiming that it was not French after all, but was made in Spain ‘under special licence’.
Considering that they found two or three unexploded bags on the trains ( one with it’s mobile-phone-detonator combo set to .pm instead of .am ) it’s odd, to say the least, that they made a mistake identifying it, and calling it ‘Titadyn’. It even smells different apparently . . .
El Pais, and dozens of other news-sites, are now telling us that it was, in fact, a product of ‘Union Espanola de Explosivos’ (UEE) whose head office is in Madrid - which presumably, won’t go down too well with the Spanish population PR-wise . . . ( Their website is http://www.uee.es, but oddly, it appears to be offline at the moment . . . )
Yet again, from the news headlines, you might think that the company is an innocent maker of mining explosives. Well, that is one of their talents - but they also make hardcore arms via their enormous sister company Expal - which is registered at the same head-office address in Madrid.
Expal’s own website http://www.expal.es is, curiously, also offline at the moment, which is a shame, because presumably it would list some of their products, such as laser guided penetration bombs, mortars, grenades, submarine mines, surface to surface missiles etc etc, ( they don’t make landmines any more since the Spanish government banned them )
( you can see a small part of the company structure here at their sister site, the charming http://www.ueec.es/Ingles
For further reference, please don’t miss this astronomically crass site - it really has to be seen to be believed - it’s the official Spanish Ministry of Defence http://www.mde.es/mde/index.htm ( make sure you have your speakers turned on ) ( this site has also now dissapeared )
Using the formula “follow the Money” the sub-page of interest is http://www.mde.es/mde/infoes/ ( this one's also gone ) where it informs us that the entire explosives/arms consortium is, ( or was ) actually owned by “Pallas Investments” a Dutch group formed by several banks and oil companies . . .
There the trail comes to an abrupt end, which is a shame , because personally, I’d like to know exactly who the owners are – It seems to me that they must be ultimately responsible for the products their companies make ?
My point is this. Nobody could blame a lawn-mower manufacturer if someone ran-amok in a city centre killing dozens of pedestrians. But when a firm is in the business of making high-tech armaments designed specifically to destroy property and kill people, the scenario must surely be viewed a little differently. Doubtless the Spanish authorities will be making extensive enquiries as to how the explosives came to ‘leak out’ into the public domain, but transparent and publicly declared results might be a little way off yet – like most European governments, they support, and even subsidise the arms industry with taxpayer’s money, . . .
Defenders of the arms industry would probably claim ( nowadays ) that companies have to continue making such weapons in the interests of the ‘Fat Ginst Terrism’, but the fact remains, that, without such ultra-high-tech explosives – whether designed for mining or for bombs - 200 or so innocent Spanish citizens would still be alive today .
A final question. Bearing in mind that the company exports around half of it’s production, ( supplying, in past years, countries such as Iraq, Argentina and the former Yugoslavia,) does their existence make the world a safer, or a more dangerous place ?
As always, if any of the companies concerned would like to respond, please e-mail and I’ll post the results here . . .
Further update:
The current Spanish government is claiming that their
predecessors – who were in power at the time of the atrocity – paid
a computer security firm to systematically wipe all computer records relating
to government communications about the event. All records over a five day
period are now officially ‘missing’.
read and digest
Normally, I wouldn’t comment on current BBC stories, because, obv, you can read them on their site – but every now and again one comes up that just can’t go un-remarked.
Like yesterday’s headline story ‘One pill for obesity and smoking’
Sanofi-Synthélabo, the French pharmaceutical giant ( net sales €7.4 Billion 2002 ) whose motto is ‘Life is our inspiration’ aaaahh sweet! are testing a drug called ‘rimonabant’ , which the BBC claims, has been shown to ‘double the chances of quitting smoking’.
Errrr . . . well that’s not actually what the company’s press release reveals. In fact, 36.2% of the ‘patients’ had stopped smoking after a ten week treatment with 20mg of the drug – as opposed to 20.6% who were given a placebo. But here’s the interesting bit – ‘patients’ who were given a 5mg dose *actually fared worse than those on a placebo* ( 20.2%). A little more research required perhaps ?
Happily, there is some more research on the horizon, because the drug is not licenced for sale yet, and is now undergoing ‘Phase III’ trials involving 6,500 patients in a worldwide study. However, as the company’s annual report states in it’s ‘Forward Looking Statements’ section :
“ . . . there is also no assurance that favorable results obtained in pre-clinical trials will be confirmed by later clinical trials . . . “
Fair enough. So, errr, what’s happened to the story then ? No idea. Ask the BBC.
Press release
http://en.sanofi-synthelabo.com/press
annual report ( large file )
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/
p.s. The drug is also claimed to reduce alcohol craving, and block the effects
of cannabis.
To be filed under ‘Amazing - who’d have thought it ‘
Prof Brain Wansink, of the University of IIlinois has conducted some fascinating new research into overeating.
University secretaries were asked to put a bowl of ‘candies’ either on their desk, or about six feet away. Researchers secretly re-filled the bowls each night and counted the number which had been eaten.
Here’s the findings:
‘ The most significant drop in the number of candies eaten occurred
when the bowl was away from the desk’ When the bowl was six feet away,
only four chocs were eaten, but when the bowl was on the desk, the number increased
to six and a half !
Strewth! Prof! That’s astounding! But there’s more to come.
He also devised an experiment whereby cinema-goers were given a free bucket’o’popcorn on their way-in to see a film. The popcorn had been deliberately chosen to be a bit on the stale side. The research found that, if the bucket was ‘large’ then more popcorn was eaten than if the bucket was ‘medium’. No! Stop! I can’t absorb all this insight in one helping.
I’m not the gambling type, but I think there’s a 34.6783% chance that the Prof. could find himself in this year’s Ig_Nobel prize nominations.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/
block it !
Back in 2002, Jamie Kellner, who was, at the time chairman of AOL’s Turner Broadcasting Systems came up with a novel slant on the philosophy of advertising. He said that viewers who flipped channels during ad breaks were ‘stealing’ because they weren’t watching the channel’s ads – which of course were it’s main source of income.
Now, some website owners are complaining that web-users who install pop-up blockers and banner-removers in their browsers are ‘stealing’ from the websites – who , of course, still have to pay for the bandwidth, whether or not the ads get seen.
Dear Advertisers, I don’t want to disappoint you, but there’s something you ought to know. Let’s get it clear shall we ?
E v e r y o n e – that is everyone with a full set of neurons - hates pop-up ads. They hate flashy banners. All they do is annoy the web-uers. They are never, ever, going to sell your product for you. In fact, they lose customers, because they will come to associate ‘being annoyed’ with your product. The ads are money down the pan.
To be fair, a lot of the more clued-up websites are very well aware that the ads annoy the users – but they just can’t say no to the ad dollars that are constantly oozing in their direction. Summed up then, their attitude to their user-base is : ‘Yes, we know these ads are going to annoy you, but we feel it’s worth it because we get paid a lot – so take a hike’
OK, how about a compromise. How about producing web-ads that people would actually like to see? Something a bit classy, perhaps a sponsored art-photograph competition ? Recipes for international cuisine ? Anything – a n y t h i n g but crappy little .gif animations, or, heaven forbid, Flash movies.
Tell you what though, as an AOL customer, I used to think that they were overpriced, unreliable, inefficient, and relentlessly down-market, but now they’ve got that ‘cute lil guy’ that runs across the menubar polishing the letters, I’ve changed my opinion of them . . .
p.s. Mr. Kellner has now left TBS.
Particularly interesting
If you don’t happen to live in Geneva, you’ve still got time to book an air ticket to get you there before 9am Tuesday. If you’re amongst the first ten people to turn up at CERN’s Meyrin post office, you will receive a Swiss commemorative stamp issued in honour of CERN, *plus a special mystery gift !*
CERN aren’t saying what the gift is, but let’s take a guess that it might be sub-atomic-particle-related. A z0? A w+- ? Or maybe be a jar of Quark-Gluon plasma ? ( a CERN specialty ) As Patrick Moore would say “Quite frankly, we just don’t know”.
What we do know is that it probably won’t be overly expensive, because CERN is, not surprisingly, a little short of cash. The Large Hadron Collider, the new accelerator which it is building, is rumoured to be costing around €2Billion, though to me, that figure sounds just a few hadrons short of a full nucleus . . . any bets on it going ‘large’ over-budget ?
The LHC will be looking for Higg’s Bosons amongst other things, when it comes online in 2007. So, although your mystery prize may well be teeming with Higg’s Bosons, unfortunately you won’t be able to know for sure, because they have been discovered yet.
Just one thing – in order to claim the gift, you have to have been born in 1954, in other words, share a birthday with the original CERN particle accelerator – so I guess you’d better take your Birth Certificate along with you.
Oh, and your surname has to be Higgs. ( Nah ! , only joking !)
There are public tours of the site planned for 16th Oct. I’d highly recommend anyone to have a look if they can, CERN is a truly astonishing, enigmatic and mysterious place.
http://info.web.cern.ch/info/ES/CERN50/
Captive State
In 1979, the late Charles Levinson, the person apparently responsible for coining the word ‘multinational’, published a book called ‘Vodka Cola ’. 469 pages crammed with astonishing details, down to dollar by dollar accounts, concerning some intriguing financial dealings which featured Exxon, Pepsi, Seat, the Vatican, Nixon, Kissinger, and dozens of others.
It’s main topic was some scandalous business tie-ups between the US and USSR, but its broader point was that world governments were rapidly losing control - to the giant corporations.
Levinson’s point was valid then, more than 20 years ago, and is even more valid now. If in any doubt, read :
‘Captive State – the Corporate
Takeover of Britain ’ by George Monbiot.
( Macmillan press ).
No less explosive than ‘Vodka-Cola ’ the book is also packed with details, and shows, with example after example, how the UK governmental infrastructure has willingly and deliberately allowed itself to become dominated by big business. In short, it’s about corruption and amorality at the highest levels.
If you use a supermarket, drive a car, have children at school or university, are undergoing NHS treatment, or live on the Isle of Skye, *you need to read this book*. Without the access to the hard facts which George M’s painstaking research provides, you will, unfortunately, be stealthily and steadily herded in the general direction of Cuckooland – which is exactly where ‘The Firm’ wants you to stay.
The hardback version costs £12.99, but it would be worth paying that just for the 17 page ‘Fat Cat Directory’ which it contains. A word of warning though, reading this book will make you angry – at least it certainly should do.
Both books are available here :
Also see :
spyware off the menu ?
If you were trying to think of a cutting-edge cyber-tech watchdog, the ‘State of Iowa’ probably wouldn’t be the first body to spring to mind. However, they have an interesting idea cooking away gently. They are proposing a new law which would make ‘Spyware’ illegal. You can read the proposal here:
http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/Cool-ICE/
It’s an interesting bill. Essentially, if made law, it would make it illegal for software companies and network operators to collect ‘Identifying Personal Information’ about an individual user without their knowledge. Each infringement of the law could invoke a prison sentence of max 2 years, and a fine between $500 and $5000.
Needless to say, there is an exemption in the proposed bill for ‘Federal’ data collectors, but nevertheless I would imagine that several very large software corporations will be keeping a very close eye on the passage of this legislation.
Personally though, I would think that you stand more chance of making a nice cup of tea in a chocolate teapot than this becoming law.
Terms and Conditions ( part 1 )
In a blaze of publicity , ( well not so much a blaze , more a match-strike
really ) , the UK Government has launched a new portal to give access to
their other sites ( all 2,500 of them ! ). Knowing how much trouble even
transglobal corporations with handsome budgets have in getting a site to
work sensibly - they’re going to need a lot of patience and luck. So
are the ‘customers’
( or are they ‘Stakeholders’ ? – one loses track of the PR-speak
. . . )
They’ve made a start though. And the first part of the site is up and running
:http://ukonline.direct.gov.uk
There’s a nifty dodge which seldom fails to unveil the ‘sensibleness’ rating of the devisors of any website – that is to have a quick look at the ‘Terms and Conditions’ page. In this case, the conditions page is pretty straightforward and reasonable – which is a very good sign.
There is one oddity though : The large red box which proclaims “We are not responsible for the content of any linked site” . . . Fair enough you might think. Why should they be responsible for the content of any other sites ? Just one problem : all the other sites are the UK government too . . . like for instance :
The Cabinet Office
The Freedom of Information Dept
The Parliamentary Ombudsman
The Data Protection Registrar
Etc etc etc
Even more worryingly, the ‘Office of the E-envoy’ who manage the site describe themselves as :
“We, below”
Bit ominous isn’t it ? Are they trying to tell us something ?
gas cash
What’s invisible and is worth €13 a tonne? Yup, the old favourite CO2. The market for ‘losing’ CO2 is well and truly hotting up. There’s no shortage ideas of how to get rid of it, ideas, which, if they work, will qualify corporations and even entire countries to claim a share of the €Billions on offer.
There’s little doubt that, if the technology was available, millions
of tonnes of the gas would be being shipped , right now, to Mars. That would
:
A) get rid of it
B) help to warm Mars again ( for greening purposes )
C) now that water has been discovered there, it could create fabulous marketing
opportunities for mineral water companies , e.g. Mars rebranded ‘Planet
Perrier’
OK, a little fanciful perhaps, but not much more hare-brained than the some of the current schemes for ‘losing it’. One time honoured way to get rid of trash is to bury it. Although ‘bury’ is a tricky concept when dealing with a gas, the Canadian Government is convinced it’s a corker of an idea. So much so, that they have announced that they are offering $22Million in non refundable grants to companies that develop ways of doing it.
There is, however, a condition. The gas, which will be injected into the ground under pressure, *is to be used to force oil back to the surface* The government calculates that some 5 Billion barrels could be recovered in this way . . .
Hmmm. I wouldn’t want to deflate their idea – but isn’t there just a tiny logical flaw in the scheme ? Errr, like the fact that burning oil is where the excess CO2 comes from in the first place ?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news
mp4 ?
Wonderful. Another .mp3 standard on the horizon. ‘Thomson’, the company which licences and holds a joint patent on the .mp3 format, have devised a ‘new’ ‘improved’ version which incorporates DRM ( Digital Rights Management ) – in other words copy protection. They’re trying to get manufactures and record labels to adopt the modernised version. Only one problem – systems which play the ‘old’ mp3 files ( like the ones you use at the moment ) won’t read the new files . . . Duh !
Funnily enough , some manufacturers are not exactly welcoming the idea with open arms -– and open chequebooks. It will cost them just under $1 in licencing fees for every single product they sell. The licence fee is, needless to say, passed on to the consumer ( plus a markup ). The punters might not be overly happy about paying this fee either – Maybe they’d like to know a bit more about the company which collects it ? . .
This is where the confusion sets in. There are two very large French companies called ‘Thomson’. One is the joint holder of the mp3 patent, and owns , among other things, RCA and Technicolor. The second is ‘Thomson-CSF’. Or rather, they were; they have now been ‘rebranded’ and are called ‘Thales’ ( pron. Tha – leees )
They are also involved in electronics – but in a very different field. This is a company which boasts a €14Billion order-book for defence technology – Their products include nuclear missile guidance systems (M45) , opto-electronic weapons sights, and ‘attack pods’ ( whatever they are ).
Confusing huh ? Two companies with almost identical names, both based in France, one a chirpy multimedia concern, the other making guidance systems for nuclear missiles. I couldn’t help wondering if they were connected in some way . . .
However, a concerted , and highly tedious, www search revealed that the ‘Thomson’ sites have no mention anywhere whatsoever of the ‘Thales group’ ( missile systems ). And , guess what, the Thales group sites have no mention whatever of the ‘Thomson’ company ( mp3 players )
I had more or less decided that the two companies were weren’t linked at all . . . until I found this . . .
http://www.elektronikforum.de/ic-id/#T
An obscure reference site for identifying the logos stamped on electronic components . . .
Well, well, well.
The logo listed for ‘Thomson CSF’, ( the arms company
) is the very same as the one that ‘Thomson’ ( the chirpy
multimedia one ) are still using on their website . . .
( see http://www.thomson.net )
In a civilised and reasonable world, where governments really were ‘committed to transparency’, there would be a free-access database where ordinary members of the public could check to see who owns what, and how corporations / directors / politicians / governments are cross-linked.
Only in your dreams . . .
It’s next to impossible to find out exact details of how companies are hooked up. There’s no doubt that the two companies had the same roots though, and, subsequent to my ‘same logo’ discovery, I found a history page on the Thomson site which tells some of the story.
http://www.thomson.net/gb/01/0194.htm
What it doesn’t say though, is how closely the companies might be involved today. From their web presences, it’s pretty clear that they are not overly enthusiastic about drawing attention to any links between them.
So my question is, when you buy your innocent mp3 player, does *any* of the lucrative royalty revenue-stream which it generates, end up going towards ultra-high-tech arms development ?
I-Pod > Attack pod ?
Be nice to know wouldn’t it ?
Let’s hope they get in touch and let me know – then I can post the details here for them. In the meantime, boot up your mp3 player, chillout, and check out a new group . . .
http://www.thalesgroup.com
featuring:
OODA ( Obsever Orient Decide Act )
FOAS ( Future Offensive Air Systems )
FIST (Future Integrated Soldier Technology)
BGTI ( Battle Group Thermal Imaging )
JOANNA ( Joint Airborne Navigation and Attack )
MELT ( Miniature Eyesafe Laser Rangefinder )
MUNOS ( Multiple Use Night Weapon Sites )
PIRATE ( Passive Infra Red Airborne Track Equipment )
SPIRS ( Sight, Periscopic, Infra-red, Scorpion )
SWARM ( Stabilised Weapon and Reconnaissance Mount )
TOGS ( Thermal Observation and Gunnery Sight )
Etc etc.
Wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of that lot.
You can download a copy of their inspiring brochure at:
http://www.thalesgroup.com/all/pdf/VIEW9_UK.pdf
sinking feeling
Sometimes the tide pulls in one direction – sometimes it pushes in the opposite. And the residents of Tuvalu know all about it. The group of islands is in the news again ( seldom a month goes by without a headline story ) because it’s in danger of becoming submerged under the Pacific.
The tide I’m referring to though, isn’t seawater, it’s P.R. pressure. Tuvalu seems to have accidentally become a battleground for diametrically opposed governmental propagandists. The Tuvalu government does not tire in its efforts to feed the world’s press agencies stories about the sea-level rise, which could spell the end for the country’s possibilities as a viable inhabitable zone.
On the other hand, the PR agencies employed by the transnational oil companies ( with governmental backing ) never tire of trying to undermine the idea that global warming and sea level rise are happening at all.
It should be pretty straightforward shouldn’t it ? Is the sea level rising or not ?
Errr . . . not sure.
Sometimes the Tuvalu government’s spokepersons say that the level has risen over the last ten years, at other times they say that ‘surprisingly’ the levels have actually fallen. To make matters worse, geologists say that some parts of the islands are actually sinking – in the sense that the land is moving slowly downwards rather than the sea upwards.
Perhaps the most revealing statement about the predicament comes from professor Patrick Nunn at the University of Fiji. “ The islands are between 2000 and 3000 years old . . . “ They apparently formed at that time because the sea levels were lower, allowing a build-up of sand and gravel.
On a geological timescale, 3000 years is not even the blink of an eyelid. Unfortunately for the Tuvalese, their ancestors chose to set down roots on the geological equivalent of a mirage. Of course, technology exists which could save the nation. Desalination plants can easily remove the salt from the island’s problematic freshwater supply ; and a dyke-building project could obviously protect the low-lying areas, as they do in much of Holland – given the budget.
But the Tuvalese don’t have the budget. The earn a few $million a year from the .tv internet domain which they’ve licenced, but that’s about it. If I were them, I’d embark immediately on a search to find a unique Tuvalese creature of some sort – lizard, moth, mouse, whatever - that way, they might get they might get international financial support for habitat protection – unfortunately, people don’t qualify it seems ( neither do fish obviously ).
and going up :
and going down :
http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/global/sea_level.html
(see also archive 16 Dec 2003)
originality
Continuing the tradition of bewildering search-engine referrals, yesterday’s choice peculiarity was
“Cartoons about sludge management”.
This time, it wouldn’t be that hard to oblige the enquirer. Two sewage-farm workers up to their necks in sludge : one (head) says to the other “Squelch back to the office and re-boot the sludge control computer again would you Jim . . .“
Unfortunately, there are other fish to fry, so the cartoon won’t be forthcoming. The point I find interesting though, is that there is someone out there in cyber-land *who thinks that there is a possibility that a cartoon about sludge management already exists*, and that it’s worth doing a quick websearch to find it. Perhaps he / she is right. Perhaps one does already exist. I’d like to think it does.
One of the great powers of the search engines and the www database is that it’s now much easier to check to see whether an idea one has just had is original or not. Unfortunately of course, as time goes on, and the database grows, it gets more and more difficult for any individual to have an original idea, unless you specialise in ever more obscure items – such as sludge management.
Eons back, before the www, one could delude oneself that an idea was original, and, on a local basis, for practical purposes, it may as well have been - because no one else would know it had been done before either. Now, we can run a check in two minutes, and more often than not find that, yes, that exact phrase, that exact image, or that exact name has already been produced . . .
So, for instance, if DJ Dangermouse had done a quick www search before embarking on his project ( see 26th Feb ) , he could have found out that :
A) Using someone else’s music without permission is illegal
B) There was already another ‘Grey Album’
C) Dangermouse is a copyrighted tradename
But if he had run a check, he might not have produced his project - and the world would be a slightly duller place . . .
P.S. Flavour-of-the-decade cosmology / physics now maintains that there is a good possibility that there are an infinite number of parallel universes – the so called ‘multiverse’ . . . makes having an original idea somewhat even more tricky. Impossible in fact.
Best not to think about it.
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