Desiring Machine

This is kind of old school now but interesting and foundational none the less. If you ever wanted to know what the digital in digital computing meant here you go.

This is originally from a Canadian TV show called “The Acme School of Stuff” that aired in the late 1980s, hosted by David Stringer. I just love David’s matter of fact and easy going way of explaining complicated topics such as digital counting, current, and electricity.

After watching this I don’t think I will ever buy a miracle-gro product again. It is amazing, someone innovates, reduces the waste stream and the big corporate interests come out with the legal guns blazing. Shame on you Scotts Miracle-Gro, shame on you. Someone out innovates you that is how capitalism works. Schumpeter called it Creative Destruction and it is fundamental to the innovative processes of capitalism.

I recently got an iPhone it is probably the single most useful tech device I have ever owned. However blogging with it is a hassle. But now I found wphone, a plugin that optimizes wordpress for the iPhone. This post was created on my iPhone. Expect to see more frequent short posts now that I can blog from my phone.

First a little disclosure. I am personally invested in a handful of solar technology stocks, some American and some Chinese so what I say comes from both a self interested capitalist point of view and an environmentalist point of view.

The house recently passed an intriguing energy bill. And the bill currently remains tied up in the Senate and president Bush has threatened to veto it. All strong indicators that actual progress is being made on the energy front. Two intriguing aspects of the bill are the increased fuel standards supported by everybody but Detroit, and the equally feel good measure of repealing 13 billion dollars of Big oil tax credits to fund the fledgling alternative energy industry. Both very positive developments. I am big on the potential for solar tech and am a firm believer that where there is political will there is a way. This country has opted to spend trillions on Nuclear and other industries in the past. We spend even a 10th of that on alternative energy we are likely to see a vibrant, sustainable and prosperous future. Shifting the priorities away from oil is the way to do that. No energy bill is perfect, this bill has provisions for coal and ethanol which can be problematic but I am willing to see a little compromise for the larger picture.

In 2005 the white house heralded an energy bill and the benefits of alternative energy. Including the following provision:

Extends the existing tax credit for production of electricity from renewable resources, such as wind, biomass, and landfill gas, and creates for the first time a tax credit for residential solar energy systems

Well now is the time for action. The current bill does exactly this by moving some of the credits away from the oil and gas sectors. I figure at nearly $100 a barrel the oil sector can take care of itself. If president Bush cares even one iota about his legacy and would like to prove that he is more action than empty talking points then he will not veto this energy bill. If he wants to prove that he is a rapacious pawn of the oil industry he will veto this bill. Conventional wisdom says that the energy bill will be vetoed. But I am holding out hope that Bush will surprise us all. Perhaps he won’t but if he can make good on this and not oppose progress this one time I will be willing to give a little more benefit of the doubt to him. But he needs to prove himself here and stand with the american people not his oil cronies.

As an aside a lot a talk is being made about how we compete with China economically. One of the big under reported stories is how China has been embracing green tech and specifically solar in a big way. Even a bit of activism is hitting the streets in the form of a “Green Long March”. Many of the chinese based solar tech stocks are up in a big way. In my opinion there is money to be made out there by reinvesting in the green future. Transition the economy for both profit and environmentally sound reasons. That is my motto. But America needs to get in gear or we will find ourselves behind in the race. We should be exporting green tech to China and capitalizing on the potential, not letting ourselves atrophy under gluttonous addiction to oil. And we start by shifting our energy policies at home.

And finally a few solar technology stocks of interest

Evergreen Solar (ESLR). A Massachusetts based solar company that has been expanding rapidly.

Ascent Solar Technology (ASTI), another small cap solar company based in Colorado. What is it about Colorado? They seem to “get it” there. Colorado is also the home of energy visionary Amory Lovins.

And then there is the high flyer, First Solar (FSLR), a Phoenix Arizona based company with some manufacturing in Ohio. This particular stock is up over 800% for the year.

This is the face of the future. We can grow our way out of the difficulties we face, and make a little money along the way. It just takes thinking ahead a little. And this new energy bill does just that.

This pedal powered roller coaster looks totally awesome and kind of scary. If I make it to Japan I am going to ride this thing. And it is environmentally sustainable as well.

Ran across this interesting piece of biking infrastructure from Trondheim Norway. The Trampe Bike Lift. Basically a simple road level lift that you place your foot on and ride to the top of the hill. The city of Trondheim has spent about 3.2 million over the last 20 years to implement this infrastructure much to the delight of the 90% biking population.

This seems like a great piece of technology to implement in Seattle on key hills. Would make biking much more feasible in the city. And it is relatively cheap. Mayor Nickels says he is for reducing green house emissions in the city. Surely with all the talk of spending billions on viaduct tunnel replacements, special trolley cars that go half a dozen blocks, and new bridges to the east side, the city and county could spend a few million making the hills less burdensome for bikers. Build the infrastructure and the people will follow. The Burke Gilman Trail is great. Why not more of this around the city? Seattle is dense enough that we could easily make getting anywhere in the city on a bicycle nearly as convenient as a bus ride.

I live on the north side of Queen Anne near the Fremont bridge. Sometimes I need to go into work on the other side of the Queen Anne near the Seattle center. Generally I would take a bicycle but the Queen Anne hill is such a bear to climb that I end up driving the short route and paying for parking. Waste of gas and waste of parking meter fees. And driving around the hill is a little out of the way when I am in a rush. But with something like the Trampe Bike lift installed it would be a snap. And in Capitol Hill and many other areas of the city a bike lift could really make biking practical around this city. Now if we could just do something about the rain. Actually it is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

In a sublime twist of irony I showed up to my precinct around 5 pm to find out that I was forced to use a Diebold voting machine. I say ironic because literally a couple hours before that I had blogged about the problems of voting machines. Here is the scenario as it unfolded. I showed up at the precinct around 5 pm there was a short line maybe 6-8 voters. After presenting my ID I was told that they were out of paper ballots. I had two options take a scantron ballot in chinese or go over and use the single Diebold machine in the corner. I laughed nervously and explained that I had a pricipled opposition to voting machines and that this put me in a quandry as to what to do. It was immediately apparent that the voting machine was not a favorite choice among voters. I thought about it for a few seconds and decided why not, at least I will get to have some empirical experience with a real machine. I think I was the first voter of the night to use the machine. The poll worker asked me to report back how it went and if I received any problems. Everyone was kind of curious how the experience would turn out.

The experience was fairly painless. Apparently there was a ticker tape that printed a physical record of my vote. Although I could only hear it running, there was no way as far as I could tell to physically view the paper trail output of my vote. I would say that this is a problem. I didn’t notice any particular issues with the touch screen not properly registering my voting intention. However I did notice what I consider a usability flaw with the process. As you are going through the ballot once you press an option there doesn’t appear to be any immediate way to change the vote. At the end of the voting process you are presented with an extensive review of your ballot choices. It is only at this point that you can go back and change a particular selection. I had not made any particular wrong selections, like voting for McGavick instead of Cantwell, etc. so I had no reason to try out the option to change a particular choice. However, from a usability perspective I would prefer the option to immediately undo a voting choice. What if I had made a wrong selection? The interface doesn’t seem to provide any feedback that you can change your choices until you are completely finished with the ballot. I could imagine this to be a problem for someone with fumbly fingers. If I had accidently made a wrong choice and found that I couldn’t change it immediatey I would be very frustrated and irritated. This is not a fatal usability bug since the voter can change his or her vote at the end but I do finding it lacking in the user feedback department.

Overall I wasn’t too displeased with the process but I still wouldn’t want to use a voter machine like this in the future. Even though there is a paper trail, it should remain visible to the user in the end. Perhaps display the ticker tape under glass or clear plastic so that I can see it being printed out. If we must use electronic voting systems then ideally, the system should provide me with a means to verify my vote after the election. One solution I can think of: Allow me to enter a unique password or user key that uniquely identifies my vote. Then register that vote in a secure database and allow me to look up my vote online or at the election office if I provide the key. The password can remain unique to me but with no voter identification so I can preserve my anonymity in the voting process. But provide me with a way to verify my vote and complain to the secretary of state in case there is an anomaly or mismatch. As far as passwords the system should force strong passwords upon the user and then require that a certain percentage of voters verify their votes against an official central database of votes before making the election results official. This would provide better security because it would require end users to police the results and if properly organized, an efficient means to audit the system and votes after the fact.

The basic problem now is that the entire process, paper ballot or otherwise, is a leap of faith for the end user. It doesn’t work this way in the banking world, or other systems that require strong security. Even if there is corruption the end user can be called upon to police the system and ensure integrity. However, providing a mechanism for individual voters to verify their votes seems like a good way to combat corruption and more importantly ensure accuracy. I am sure there are more issues to think through on this problem but I think the security premise of end user policing of the process seems like a viable hybrid solution.

And one last point. Why did my precinct run out of paper ballots? I don’t really have any reason to suspect intentional fraud. I will give the benefit of the doubt and assume that this election cycle the turnout was higher than expected therefore the precinct was not prepared for the number of voters. Which is a good thing. But I don’t understand why there has to be situation where a precinct would run out of ballots. Seems odd.

If you only have time to watch one video about the problems of voting machines then you should watch the Hacking Democracy documentary from HBO.

Hacking Democracy now available on Google Video.

There is a lot to be said about the problems of voting machines. Many will attempt to smoke screen the argument by suggesting that this is about delusional fantasies of conspiracy theorists. But that is not the point. Not even close. Malice and malfeasance do not figure into the real problem. The problem is one of secrecey around the verfication process. Secrecy by the vendors, secrecy of the machines, secrecy of the software processes and code that run the systems. The problems are profound. And when you have secrecy you create an atmosphere of conspiracy. But potential for evil actors is not so much the issue for me. I think in the balance there are partisans on both sides that will in effect neutralize the bad actors. If people do hack the machines then I trust that it will simply be an arms race between Republican leaning partisans and Democratic leaning partisans. Who knows, maybe a Green or Libertarian cabal could throw a senate race and get one of their candidates into office. No I am not worried about conspiracy.

The problem with secrecy is incompetence. How do we verify that the machines are sufficiently competent for the task that they serve? I work in the high tech industry. I have a fairly broad understanding of technology in general and computing in particular. And I would not trust these machines as far as I could throw them. So long as the vendors insist on keeping a veil of secrecy around their systems we have every right to remain suspect. It is our duty to remain suspect. With secrecy there is insufficient transparancy to insure competence in implementation. And Hacking Democracy, and Bev Harris have gone to great lengths to demostrate the lack of competence in the implementation of these voting systems. The motives of a Diebold corporation are clear. It is about profit. If there is a crisis of legitimacy in their systems then that is bad for business. I don’t believe in a grand conspiracy to turn elections towards one party or the other. I think it is really about trying to sell as much technology as possible. And at the end of the day people who demand transparency in an effort to expose these flawed technologies should be commended. This is what democracy is all about. It is about moving toward a more perfect union. A better system.

I think voting machines are ultimately on the out. Vote by mail seems to be the best of breed system and encourages high turnout.

This is a straight forward problem with straight forward action. The president and the federal goverment do not control how elections are run. That is done at the county and prescint level with the guidance of the Secretary of State for each state. Do yourself a favor. Watch the Hacking Democracy video and ask yourself if you trust the voting machines. If not, and you live in a county that implements this kind of system then complain to your county or prescint representative. It really only takes a handful of people in each county to dramatically alter the landscape of our election system. In fact your voice on this matter is probably more important and more significant than your voice in determining your Senator or President.

Well it seems Google is becoming a victim of their own success.

And that is the problem with becoming a cultural phenomenon. The law ceases to protect you. What is happening to Google is what Gilles Deleuze would call a deterritorialization or line of flight.

“Multiplicities are defined by the outside: by the abstract line, the line of flight or deterritorialization according to which they change in nature and connect with other multiplicities. The plane of consistency (grid) is the outside of all multiplicities. The line of flight marks: the reality of a finite number of dimensions that the multiplicity effectively fills; the impossibility of a supplementary dimension, unless the multiplicity is transformed by the line of flight; the possibility and necessity of flattening all of the multiplicities on a single plane of consistency or exteriority, regardless of their number of dimensions.”

~ Gilles Deleuze Thousand Plateaus

The semantic disruption of Google is possible because of its multiplicitous nature. Googling is a nomadic experience. A process by which one moves adrift through the chance encounters of reality and linguistic relationships that bind them together. The network that Google corporation glues together traces out the very grid that we live within. In a word Google has become ours because it has weaved together through its tapestry of search algorithms, technologies, and interstitial existences the very fabric of our being. When you become that co-aligned with the grid you no longer continue operating as a separate autonomous unit of being. Your identity is lost, you become nomad.

It is remarkable the rhetoric and logic of ownership, trademark, and corporatism. To presume that things are fundamentally discrete and can be owned, or even that language can be owned and controlled because it is part of a brand. Rarely is it mentioned that Google is the product of us. What is compelling about Google is that it weaves together the products of our being, whether they be blogs, news, video clips, webpages, text, audio, utterances and disclosures. That is the soup of life and tapestry of our weaved web. Google owns it no more than you or I own it. It is a territory that defies territorialization. And Google, being successful in providing the services that effectively allow us to traverse this web, finds that their brand has become something that they no longer really have any control over. And so goes the logic of control when confronted with the force of deterritorialization. Google is a line of flight that traces, it is no longer a stable place, entity, or idea.

Hey Google, I got your google right here!

You know when GOP Senate candinate Mike?™ McGavick blew .17 on his DUI he didn’t have the benefit of technology to know that he was blackout drunk when he got behnd the wheel. Well now there is a better way for the on-the-go-had-too-many-hipster-cum-future-Senate-candidate to act responsibly as they booze it up.

Introducing the iBreath a breathalyzer for your iPod.

I can’t think of a better gift for that aspiring future Senator in your family. The product makes staying sober cool and hip again.

Perhaps someone should send one to the McGavick campaign HQ.