Desiring Machine

Came across this audio of Senator Ted Stevens arguing against Net Neutrality. Wow! Just wow. It is unfortunate how ill informed the Senator is on how the internet works. But what is more amazing is that the telcos have this guy representing their interests in the senate. One would think that perhaps they would strive to have a more articulate defender of their interests.

A key quote from Senator Stevens:

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let’s talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren’t using it for commercial purposes.

Either Stevens is lying or else this is a really, really, sad commentary on the state of IT network support in the capitol. Is Stevens really trying to tell us that he sent an email that took the entire weekend to deliver? What intern staffer is running Bit Torrent and a warez server saturating internet bandwith in the Senator’s office? There are certainly legitimate issues around QoS and bandwidth usage, but we are nowhere near this level of degradation of internet service.

The whole debate on Net Neutrality is really unfortunate. I don’t fault Stevens. To the average person the internet is really a feat of magic, that mysteriously just works. The number of people who understand how networks work on a level sufficient to have an informed opinion on the technical workings of the internet are really not that significant with respect to the general population. However, that is what expert staffers are for and a senator should avail him or herself of these resources, not just simply shill out uninformed BS that comes from special interest memos. The nation is not served well by representatives this out of touch. And if they are this ill informed about the internet then what about really important matters like nuclear weapons, arms proliferation, energy policy, scientific facts on global warming, and all the other critical issues that face our nation and our planet?

Myself, I am a bit conflicted about Net Neutrality legislation. I whole heartedly agree with the principle of net neutrality, the internet exists today because of this principle and standard. Interoperability survives and in some cases thrives because of the neutral nature of the network and the cooperative spirit of nodes on the internet. Everything I have read is that the telcos want to get into the content business, and tiered service pricing is a way to pinch those in the content business, not to mention their current voice service competition in the form of VOIP. The real danger is the overt and excessive commericialization of the internet. The internet is great because it is one of the most level playing fields we have. I especially don’t want to see the internet become simply another extension of cable TV where conglomerates are competing with each other to deliver us the latest bubble gum shlock phenomenon at high bit rates and (un?)intentionally edging out the small independent operation. The other reality is that we in the US are falling behind in our bandwidth potential. If not corrected soon this will become a real drag on our economic potential as a nation. So I don’t want to see legislation that props up failing business models.

On the other hand I fear this debate in the senate because of the law of unintented consequences. I want an intelligible debate by our representatives. I worry about the long term effect of bad legislation. The internet has a kind of nice anarchistic charm to it that is slowly dying. Just as I don’t want the internet to turn into TV, I also don’t want it to become beholden to onerous intrusion of every piss pot special interest out there. If neo nazis or earth liberation front groups, pedophiles or republicans, fascists or christians all want to make their way on the internet that is fine by me. We as a nation are strengthened by the proliferation of diverse opinions and the free expression of speech. And let fringe groups become marginalized by informed citizens. I don’t want the internet itself to become a battle ground where one group tries to silence another group all in the name of protecting the public whether is it through decency laws, or intrusive network controls and surveillance that is enabled by bad legislation. I am not opposed to regulation per se, but it has to be well informed, thoughtful legislation. And the internet cannot be turned in a political football. And specific regulation such as net neutrality will need to be careful in not creating too much of a precident for more onerous future regulation. And unfortunately with the likes of Stevens in the Senate I am not sure the American public is getting a fair shake on the net neutrality issue.

Wonkette has a nice batch of photos from the recent visit Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi made to Graceland, home of Elvis. These pictures are so breathtakingly awesome words just can’t do them justice.

Interesting article from the New York Times about students rioting over the name of the their University printed on their degree . The summary is that students paid excessive money for a degree from a university that would label their degrees with a prestigious university name, Zhengzhou University, but the students got a raw deal and were granted degrees labelled “Zhengzhou University Shengda Economic, Trade and Management College”. I guess an American equivalent would be something like paying a lot to get a degree that says Harvard School of Business but instead getting a degree that actually read Harvard Business School Training a division of Phoenix University Online.

This whole episode is fascinating in that it shows how crazy things are in China. Who knew that a little truth in advertising law might be the spark that brings on the revolution? I don’t really have a lot of sympathy for the students in this case. Who goes into massive debt to acquire a phony degree? I guess we are fortunate in the USA because we have a well established State college and university system that is well respected. Sure going to Harvard or Stanford is important but not that important, given the strength of our entire university system and moreover the strength of our economy. This is one area where America has done well in distributing wealth and providing many outlets for a quality education. Although we do have elitism, which is a bit more rampant on the east coast with their fetish of the Ivy League.

I have always felt that China and India have huge structural problems that will not be easy to overcome even with their economic growth. Even with all the fear of outsourcing in this country I am confident that we are not in any real threat of being outdone by China or India economically in the long term. Globalization certainly has it victims, and the massive decimation of the American manufacturing base is nothing to sneeze at. But many of these issues can be solved politically, and by applying pressure on our governments and corporations to respect human rights and decent labor laws and environmental standards at home and abroad. And Americans need to ween themselves from the excessive profits and benefits of cheap labor, whether it is the groceries we purchase or the cheap plastics in our shoes, laptops and iPods.

Came across this interesting blog today The Homeless Guy. He posted this picture on his blog about woman in Bend Oregon with her own kind of anti homeless statement.

The sign reads:

I don’t have a dog.
But I do have a home
a husband and kids !!!
and
I work for a living.

Some people are really pathetic.

Last time I drove through Bend Oregon I was really despressed. I am a native of North Eastern Oregon. I had always thought of Bend as a quiet little town in central Oregon. But last time I was there it seemed overrun with development. Booming real estate and realitor signs. I suspect it attracts a lot of wealthy retirees from California. The climate is nice and the landscape is beautiful. With women like this I can’t say much about the people though.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

Thomas Paine
The Age of Reason

Check out this Wired article by Bruce Schneier The Scariest Terror Threat of All. A good read. I think Bruce understands the nature of terrorist threats pretty well. It is about time we had this discussion in this country. Also learned an interesting term, the flypaper theory of terrorism. Which seems like a dominant albeit ultimately weak justification for our involvement in Iraq.

A recent report from the NY Times alleges that Zarqawi was training foreign terrorists in Iraq to carry out a global mission of terror. A couple of key quotes:

Counterterrorism officials in the United States said that they, too, had seen a flow of terrorists into Iraq from other countries, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, seeking training under Mr. Zarqawi and his associates.

And according to the Europeans:

Authorities across Europe have identified dozens of young militant Muslim men who have either left Europe to fight in Iraq or have been stopped while planning to do so. American forces in Iraq have said at least three French nationals are among the dozens of foreign fighters they have captured there.

The whole gist of this narrative is to present Zarqawi as an international matermind and ring leader that rivals Bin Laden and has been instrumental in extending the global war on terrorism. But this narrative just doesn’t seem to comport with the reality of daily life in the United States and Europe. The Zarqawi story works to justify the rationale for being in Iraq, we are fighting terrorists, we are keeping them there not here, and Zarqawi is just further evidence that the insurgency is fueled and maintained by foreign jihadists bent on the over throw of American forces.

I will not deny that there is an element of that in Iraq but I it strikes me that the heart of the insurgency is nationalist and sectarian in nature. And this is a problem that the administration neither anticipated nor completely understands how to address. How do you fight a war where the local citizens are your enemy under the cover of everyday life? Sure given enough boots on the ground we could kick in every single door in the nation and search for explosives and weapons, but in the process we are much more likely to inflame and incite more resentment and hostility against our troops. This is a tooth and nail fight on the ground and Zarqawi is relatively meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Back to the so called global war on terrorism. The administration would love the public to believe that the streets are crawling with terrorists and that the war in Iraq and the death of Zarqawi is somehow thwarting the terrorists’ plans. But to me this doesn’t make much sense. In a certain sense the terrorist threat is way over blown. If the so called “terrorist camps” are so successful why have we not seen more suicide bombings in Europe or the U.S.? Perhaps there are not as many jihadists out there. Perhaps the few out there, become overwhelmed by the libertine and relatively open culture and wealth we enjoy. Living in a flop house in New York City as bad as it may seem is nothing like living in a routinely terrorized Palestinian village. The lack of bulldozers, angry community, bitter poverty and over reaching Israeli militants does something to your motivation. But more than this, terrorist operations strike me as exceedingly easy to carry out if your real goal is to terrorize a population. How hard would it be for a group of 20 guys to carry out a coordinated sniper campaign in several U.S. cities similar to the D.C. sniper case? That kind of action could do a lot to a public but yet we don’t see anything like that in our country or in Europe either, much less desperate suicide bombers. If there are Jihadists out there then their goals seem much more foolishly bent on glory. Many must hold romantic and grand ambitions of carrying out tactics on a grand scale. The assassination of leaders, the collapsing of buildings or the defense of a sacred holy land. The other reality is that small cells of terrorism are really not that effective. In this sense perhaps the president has done something to combat the efforts of terrorists. I think the law enforcement efforts and the freezing of financial assets are generally useful tactics to regulate and control small groups of people who have designs of over throwing the state or terrorize the population. Small disconnected groups of terrorists are not really capable of doing much damage, especially if they have limited access to financial resources or coordinated communications and explosives. And this has always been the reality in America. Small groups have not been that effective, even home grown terrorists. Sure there is the occasional crackpot who has means, opportunity and will (McVeigh for example), but by and large the threat of terror has not been that significant to the majority of citizens. You are probably more likely to die in a car accident.

But why all the grand triumphalism around Zarqawi’s death? There are established methods of containing and combating terrorist organizations but a massive war effort doesn’t seem to be the correct approach. I heard it once described that Bin Laden’s real intention would be to draw America into a long intractable and economically unsustainable war effort, similar to what the Russians faced in Afghanistan in the 70’s and 80’s, albeit that was primarily CIA backed. This has come to pass and we are well past the threshhold of quagmire. But what purpose does Zarqawi really serve the administration? He serves as a symbol, but perhaps an empty one at that. His death is merely the last gasp of a struggling administration facing tough opposition politically and a growing resistance to the war it started. It is hoped that Zarqawi could become a symbol of success in Iraq but really the public is smarter than that and already there are lots of questions with no clear answers. It is the administration that has killed over 2500 of our young men and women in uniform and this number is quickly approaching the 2700 dead in the WTC towers. The administration is at a desperate cross roads and it knows that its time is coming to an end. The whole Zarqawi affair is just a desperate attempt to rally support for a failed war effort for which the administration will be held to account. I am optimistic and I know that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are on a path of victory and will see the end to our president’s folly in Iraq.

I will leave you with this inspirational hymn from Dylan, just hum it to yourself as you go to work or walk down the street:

Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
I shall walk.

The trail is dusty
And my road it might be rough,
But the better roads are waiting
And boys it ain’t far off.

Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
We shall walk.

I walked down by the river,
I turned my head up high.
I saw that silver linin’
That was hangin’ in the sky.

Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
We shall walk.

The evenin’ dusk was rollin’,
I was walking down the track.
There was a one-way wind a-blowin’
And it was blowin’ at my back.

Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
We shall walk.

The gravel road is bumpy,
It’s a hard road to ride,
But there’s a clearer road a-waitin’
With the cinders on the side.

Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
We shall walk.

That evening train was rollin’,
The hummin’ of its wheels,
My eyes they saw a better day
As I looked across the fields.

Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
We shall walk.

The trail is dusty,
The road it might be rough,
But the good road is a-waitin’
And boys it ain’t far off.

Trails of troubles,
Roads of battles,
Paths of victory,
We shall walk.

Ever since the news of Zarqawi’s death came over the wires I have been trying to make sense of it and what it really means. On the face of it it seems like one of these convenient and felicitous conincidences that favors the administration’s “stay the course” rhetoric. But it is hard to not feel cynical. I genuinely detest the cynicism that we live in today. I lay a lot of this at the feet of our president. He has through his policies and rhetoric made this nation cynical, and further alienates the voting population. I guess this has both potentially positive (real political resistance) and negative (pessimism and voter decline) effects. As it goes I am not a huge conspiracy buff and I hate to see complex issues reduced down to simple conspiracies, but the current administration doesn’t seem to care much, and is rather blase about addressing these concerns. Several years ago when Clinton ordered the airstrike on a Sudanese “chemical/perfume” factory there were numerous cynical accusations that it was merely a ploy to deflect attention during the height of the Lewinsky scandal. This never felt right and seemed to be a very crude cynical criticism. But perhaps there is something to this trick. Today the Bush administration relies on many different rabbits to pull out of the hat at a moment’s notice to modulate and motive public opinion in a specific direction. We have seen it with the staged “mission accomplished”, the grand display of the death of Hussein’s sons, the triumphalism surrounding the capture of Saddam Hussein himself, and most recently the news about Zarqawi’s death. And whenever opposition to the War starts to gain steam something like this comes along. The most sinister thing in all this is the administration’s constant assertion that things are not as bad as they seem. The claim is always the same: Bias. The “wrong” pictures are being shown. This all really begs the question, if things are really going so well why is there not a clear plan of withdrawal and a plan to hand things over to the Iraqi people? In my mind there are only a few explanations for this:

1.) Things are not really going well and our troops are genuinely needed to police the nation. Thus the administration is in a contradiction.

2.) Things are progressing fine but the administration has no intention of withdraw or changing course because the war and it continuous drama deflects the American public from the abysmal domestic agenda of this administration.

3.) Things are what they are in Iraq but the administration has ambitions of empire in the region so withdrawal is a non starter towards that end.

4.) some configuration of the above.

And so this week we are greeted with the death of “master terrorist” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The problem is that this is just one man, and regardless, doesn’t appear to change a damn thing. It might make a nice talking point, or a feather in Bush’s cap as he gleefully checks one more off his “list of terrorists” he keeps in his desk. The problem is that this kind of public drama is only really useful in elections and voting season. The administration can stand ten feet tall and declare that they are protecting you the American public from boogeymen. But I have a hard time believing that this is going to play that well for the administration. They still face tough questions. If the war is going that well where is the real evidence? Why are we still there? Frankly I have not been tuned into the TV or the mainstream media for quite awhile so I have no viceral feeling of how this Zarqawi news is playing on the 24 hr blather circuit. The real interesting fact to me is that we are quickly approaching a harrowing metric in the war. We are hovering around 2500 dead American solidiers in Iraq, most estimates put the number of deaths of the collapse of the World Trade Center around 2700. So when those two numbers converge we really are left with a meaningful question, is it worth it? At this point even if Bush presents us with Bin Laden’s head on a silver plate it won’t be enough. Bottom line is that the administration has squandered any little credibility it had. And token victories of the capture or death of specific individuals does little to convince me that we are making meaningful progress in Bush’s war.

But like I said I am still trying to make sense of the significance of Zarqawi’s death. One person who seems to be making sense out of all this is Geov Parrish in his recent column Another day, another martyr.

The whole thing continues to leave a pit in my stomach. I will just finish by posting one of the most heart wrenching photos I have seen from the war. Still makes me quiver and cry to this day. This is life during war time and as someone much more poetic than me once said: “this ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around”.

I find mildly disturbing this news from Intel that they won’t work on any new instruction sets for their micro processors. The reasons why seem clear. Itanium just did not have any traction in the market place because it had no real mainstream software to run on it. Intel made a misstep by going all or nothing with Itanium where AMD took the more prudent approach of bolting on 64 bit instructions to the x86 instruction set. And Intel was burned badly. However, I find this whole episode disheartening and don’t like to hear that a major R&D based company like Intel is saying no to future developments in micro processor instruction sets. Are we really to believe that we are at the peak of civilization when it comes to micro processors, and that x86 is the pinnacle of human achievement? If so, this is a sad day for humanity and for all the competent and diligent engineers and researchers in Silcon Valley, Silicon Forest, and elsewhere who labor away at developing new and interesting processor designs.

This whole dilemma should mostly be laid at the feet of software developers. Yeah, I know I have heard all the arguments before, massive QA testing efforts, economies or scale, etc. all make building platform agnostic code all but impractical. But is this really the case? In a certain sense, yes. But only because the behemoths and the purveyors of mono culture have won in the market place. This is one of those areas where Microsoft either directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally have contributed to the stagnation of innovation. Other companies have not taken this path, but unfortunately they have not faired as well financially as MSFT. But this does not mean they are total failures either. The company I work for, Sun Microsystems, has made a pretty good business out of Java, a programming language which from the start was designed to be platform agnostic. With Java you can, in theory, write your code and software packages and they will run on any platform so long as there is a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) available for that platform. And building new virtual machines for new and different platforms is a lot more efficient than porting over all your applications to a new platform. As another example take Apple Computer, last year they announced their transition from Power PC (PPC) micro processors to Intel based x86 micro processors. One path Apple could have taken was to say all new software should be ported to intel and left PPC processors cold. But that would have alienated their existing user base and would not have been a smart business decision. Instead Apple did the hard work and developed a methodology and set of developer tools that allow software to be developed as Universal Binaries. For Apple this concept is not new. In a former life these were called Fat Binaries. They first appeared when Apple made a transition from the 68000 Motorola processor to the Power PC processor in the early 90’s. And Steve Jobs’ company NeXT had robust support for fat binaries that allowed software to be run on many platforms including Intel x86. And to further assist the transition Apple announced that they would ship with Rosetta, a software based emulation layer that would allow PPC code to run unchanged on x86 processors, albeit with a performance cost.

For those of you in the know this is all old news. But my point is that these efforts by companies like Apple and Sun should be encouraged. With some long range planning and a little forethought software can be developed to take advantage of advancements in the state of the art of hardware and processor innovation. There are many valid reasons for platform diversity. We take for granted that diversity is good for culture, society, politics, ecosystems, and many other facets of life. Why not for information technology? Different processors are good. They can help our critical information systems guard against malignant viruses and security threats that propagate through vectors bound by homogeneous systems. Different processors can be developed for specialized types of computing that lead to even greater efficiency and productivity. And furthermore innovative developments in processor technology can be achieved by exploring radically new designs which lead to significant advances in the state of the art whether it is greater raw processing power, singificantly lower energy requirements, or productivity enhancing achievements through parallel processing techniques. There is no intrinsic reason software can’t be made to easily take advantage of these new hardware possibilities. And companies like Sun and Apple will be well positioned when the future brings new and interesting platforms to the fore. But apparently Intel is not going to be the company that is willing to innovate in the micro processor field. This is truly a sad day.

Check out the Monkey Chow Diaries by Adam Scott. This is one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. Adam’s deadpan delivery is classic, in the vein of Steven Wright or Michael Richards. If you are confused just watch the videos. I sure hope Adam gets a job out of this, he deserves to be on SNL.