Category Archives: weblog

Today I discovered FIRE. I discovered that public access to OpenAI had become available. So I asked it about “sound money” v “fiat” money.

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Today I discovered FIRE. I discovered that public access to OpenAI had become available. So I asked it about “sound money” v “fiat” money. And why the poor will be worse off under Universal Basic Income based on our current monetary system.
 
Here is a transcript of my conversation with OpenAI Sunday 12th June:

Q: Does fiat money assume the planet has infinite resources?
A: No, fiat money does not assume the planet has infinite resources.
 
Q: Why does fiat money does not assume the planet has infinite resources?
A: Fiat money is not based on the assumption that the planet has infinite resources. Rather, it is based on the full faith and credit of the issuing government.
 
Q: Fiat money is not based on the assumption that the planet has infinite resources. Rather, it is based on the full faith and credit of the issuing government because
 
A: The full faith and credit of the issuing government is what gives fiat money its value. The government can print more money if it needs to, but that would devalue the currency and is generally not considered good economic policy.
 
Q: How can government determine if human life can be sustained on the planet by using fiat money as a store of value?
 
A: There is no guarantee that human life can be sustained on the planet by using fiat money as a store of value. However, the government can use fiat money to help stabilize the economy and encourage economic growth.
 
Q: Does a gold standard better sustain human life on planet earth than fiat money if there is no guarantee that human life can be sustained on the planet by using fiat money as a store of value.
 
A: There is no guarantee that human life can be sustained on the planet by using either a gold standard or fiat money as a store of value. However, a gold standard may be more effective in sustaining human life on planet earth than fiat money.
 
Q: Why would a gold standard or “sound money” be more effective in sustaining human life on planet earth than fiat money.
 
A: A gold standard or “sound money” would be more effective in sustaining human life on planet earth than fiat money because the value of gold is not based on the full faith and credit of the issuing government. The value of gold is based on the law of supply and demand.
 
Q: If a gold standard may be more effective in sustaining human life on planet earth than fiat money does Bitcoin not provide a more practical solution then using gold in the future as it is easier to exchange across the internet?
 
A: There is no guarantee that human life can be sustained on planet earth by using either a gold standard or fiat money as a store of value. However, Bitcoin may provide a more practical solution than using gold in the future as it is easier to exchange across the internet.
 
Q: In what ways is Bitcoin a more practical solution that gold in the future as it is easier to exchange across the internet?
A: Bitcoin is a more practical solution than gold in the future as it is easier to exchange across the internet because it is digital and can be sent electronically. Gold is a physical commodity and must be physically transported.
 
Q: If the “law of supply and demand” is more likely to sustain human habitation on the earth than monetary policy based on “fiat money” is the human race not better choosing “sound money”?
A: There is no guarantee that human life can be sustained on planet earth by using either a gold standard or fiat money as a store of value. However, the law of supply and demand is more likely to sustain human habitation on the earth than monetary policy based on “fiat money”.
 
Q: Why is the law of supply and demand is more likely to sustain human habitation on the earth than monetary policy based on “fiat money”?
 
A: The law of supply and demand is more likely to sustain human habitation on the earth than monetary policy based on “fiat money” because the value of gold is not based on the full faith and credit of the issuing government. The value of gold is based on the law of supply and demand.
 
Q: Why is “fiat money” based on the full faith and credit of the issuing government unlikely to sustain human habitation on the earth?
A: “Fiat money” is based on the full faith and credit of the issuing government and is unlikely to sustain human habitation on the earth because the government can print more money if it needs to, but that would devalue the currency and is generally not considered good economic policy.
 
 
Q: Does “sound money” provide a better standard of living for the average citizen than “fiat money”?
A: There is no guarantee that human life can be sustained on planet earth by using either a gold standard or fiat money as a store of value. However, “sound money” may provide a better standard of living for the average citizen than “fiat money”.
 
 
Q: If “sound money” may provide a better standard of living for the average citizen than “fiat money”. Then would the rich benefit more from Universal Basic Income based on a “fiat money” system?
A: There is no guarantee that human life can be sustained on planet earth by using either a gold standard or fiat money as a store of value. However, the rich may benefit more from Universal Basic Income based on a “fiat money” system.
 
Q: Why would the rich benefit more from Universal Basic Income based on a “fiat money” system than under a “sound money” system?
A: The rich may benefit more from Universal Basic Income based on a “fiat money” system than under a “sound money” system because the value of the currency would be less likely to decline.
 

Dog one

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Anarchy – only when is the question

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Ray Kurzweil’s book, The Age of Spiritual Machines. Moore’s Law will fail at around 2020, at which point a paradigm shift in computing technology will occur.

Currently:

SDR + 21 Inc = anarchy

These two technologies can and will provide a replacement for the Internet as we know it and the global finance system.

The only question is when. And it looks like a little after 2020, the hardware required for software defined radio will plummet in price when silicon chips are replaced with another information processing technology. Information processing technology is essentially switching technology and this could be biological via DNA and protein structures where light as used instead of electrical circuits through the logic gates which they do currently.

Why is bitcoin at $410

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“The free 21 Bitcoin Library and command line interface (CLI) is a full-featured version of the 21 software package that you can use to get a bitcoin-payable web service up and running in minutes. ” Is on it’s way.

“You need a separate micropayments channel for each API! Right now, we do support micropayment channels at the level of each individual API as described in the example here. However, we will soon be adding support for each client to open single long-running payment channel to 21.co to cover micropayments for all APIs your client is purchasing from the entire marketplace.”

  • 21 inc get free 21 Bitcoin Library rocking
  • Micropayment API becomes extensive
  • Netflix uses 21 inc micropayment network
    • make more profit
  • TV manufacturers put 21 inc chip in
    • get continuous revenue stream from streaming companies

The blockchain doesn’t scale, the blockchain doesn’t scale, the roof if falling in. No it is not. Nor is it likely to.

Why is bitcoin at $410?

so how is there also money for war

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Because unfortunately it allows most of the West to have a very high standard of living and if Joe Public knew exactly how their standard of living was directly linked to the military industrial complex, the killing involved, the drug laundering, etc. I bet they might even vote for more of it to increase their standard of living. Humans are genetically programmed to look after their kith & kine, family / village / town etc. We breed more successfully than rats and religion has become very strong. For example one group who believe their God is the only true God breeds at 7% per annum, which is a double factor of 10 years. This is causing problems.

There isn’t enough contemplation time in the modern day to reflect on making the most of life. Death is practically a banned subject in Western culture and most religions have an obsession with the afterlife. We’ll just have to see what computers choose for us in 20 years time as the point of singularity draws nearer.

Invented by Antoine LeCoultre in 1844, the Millionometer was the first instrument in history capable of measuring microns. He sat on his invention for 50 years waiting for the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris before showing it. Did the German manufacturers of Field Guns use the technology – I doubt it, it arrived too late. What if he had patented his instrument in 1844. He might not have been granted the patent because of it’s military implications. Would the Swiss have let the Germans have had the designs? We shall never know, but we do know that extreme AI – will have NO MASTER.

CRISPR technology will look like a walk in the park.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

What is the Middle Class?

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The middle class by classical definition on wikipedia is “about 25 percent of British society, reported high economic capital, high status of mean social contacts, and both high highbrow and high emerging cultural capital.” however you classify a person by this measure they nearly all have something in common.

Comfortable
What is comfortable, whilst we can look up a dictionary definition of comfortable as well, lets assume that one of the defining factors in modern life is not having to worry about money too much on a day to day basis.

Middle class begets more middle class with the 6% of the elite thats pretty much a solid majority which control the country. That’s leaving out who is actually in power politically, but it’s actually the group of people that who shape the way society functions.

Control
This group has always been in control in one way another through the years even when the country was under a feudal rule. Anything that disturbs this section of society’s distribution of wealth causes concern. Until something threatens this group’s existence or standard of living it doesn’t pay attention to it.

Selfish
Does this group perpetuate the selfish gene? It certainly becomes an interesting mind experiment if we apply the theory to the “group”. I personally cannot see any reason why it shouldn’t.

Inclusive
We came from a society that only allowed certain segments to vote but over time the vote became inclusive. Now in the 2015 UK General Election, can we honestly say that we would want this to be so? Just over 50 years ago since World War II, half a lifetime, we have a political force that ten years ago would have been labelled “racist, fascist, bigots“. Who are these people? Well whilst the group is inclusive to both sides of the political spectrum it contains a percentage that are part of my definition of the comfortable middle class.

Money
What is money? Well I’d would hazard a guess that most people don’t give the monetary system any more thought to that question than say where there Peacocks £2.99 t-shirt is manufactured or what the hourly rate of pay in relation to the UK minimum wage is there. What I can explain in a few sentences is after the financial crash of 2008 occurred, the “central banks” that help governments control the economy started to print money in a slightly different way to the Weimar republic of Germany between 1919-1923. Instead of printing money with paper, the central banks post-2008 generated it with computers.

Debtonomics (New economic term – Economics based on Debt, rather than Capital)
Now in pre-Hitler Germany printing money led to inflation, this led to goods costing more tomorrow than they do today. Too much money in the system, so people needed more wage money to stand still to survive what needs to be bought tomorrow.

Post-2008 computer generated money by mainly the US has caused an unprecedented boom in the stock market. This is the future value that pension companies place in companies they buy into. They want to obtain the highest return on their investment for their stakeholders. The stakeholders are the widows and pensioners who are no longer largely in the tax system paying “work force”.

So much money has been created out thin air, that companies are seeking to add value to their companies not by manufacturing new widgets that society needs nor providing services which are better than their competitors but just acquiring companies that do make things or have a better service product.

The new money printing called “Quantitative Easing”, regards of how it creates money maybe actually causing deflation, many “experts” believe this to be true. Personally with the frequent changes in measuring CPI and the dumping of the RPI in 2013 which lie to believe is hard to choose.

The long-term consequences of global QE are likely to permanently impair living standards for generations to come while creating a false illusion of reviving prosperity.

was said by Guggenheim’s Chairman of Investments and Global Chief Investment Officer, Scott Minerd. 26th March 2015. We are happy that increasingly more “serious people” come to the same conclusion which we posited first a 6 years ago wrote Zerohedge. “The cost of QE is greater than the income lost to savers and investors.”

Summary of QE
We know who QE is screwing and we know who QE is benefitting. Therefore do we need to understand the global economics – nope.

Fit for power? (UK)
We have politicians who want our vote, whose economic advisers are woefully unqualified by anybodies standpoint to navigate the post-2008 economic post-consumer society.

We have a society that may limit our path to inflationary growth because tomorrows manufactured goods will always be cheaper tomorrow and from a country point of view we will allow whole national infrastructure industries to be wiped out by economic rules created in a Keynesian pre-2008 world.

Do supermarket suppliers receive a fair market price for their products?
What will happen to the quality of the arable land in Europe under the stewardship of the European Union?

Middle Class, Working Class – do I care?
I don’t care because these labels aren’t helping anybody in any shape of form.

The monetary system is changing
Bitcoin will be patched in preparation for the lightning network – see Blockstream hires Rusty Russell

The new class system will comprise of those who:

  • Really understand money – (as the way money used to be, like gold)
  • Those that can create added value with digital money and digit assets
  • Those that use it

Dislocation
Such is the dy/dx of change with respect to the understanding of money and wealth transposing on society that any references to class, cease to have any meaning.

Maybe Cameron isn’t an idiot? But a closet property developer #CameronCryptoBollox

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Well our Prime Minister David Cameron really set the tongues wagging for the 1% with a vague concern about the small issues surrounding the freedom of speech on Monday 12th January 2015. The alleged “I am clearly an idiot with mentally challenged advisers” was as follows:

“Are we going to allow a means of communication between people which even in extremis, with a signed warrant from the Home Secretary personally, that we cannot read?”

“No we must not. The first duty of any government is to keep our country and our people safe.”

You see, I live near to Totnes in the UK, you may have heard of it even Internationally, it’s the home of Transition Town. Every now and again we’ll get the odd strange planning application come up in the local paper. The Duke of Somerset to build on green belt, yarda yarda. Then there’s the plot at the end of Plymouth road by the Council offices, yarda yarda and again a lovely green field site previously owned by the Dartington Hall Trust. Going under concrete as I type.

So I reckon Cameron is maybe a closet property developer? If you follow a local planning issue in your town and I’m writing as a Brit, I’m sure it’ll be the same story in your own town where ever you live.

  • Property Developer wants to build 100 homes
  • Property Developer applies to build 500 homes
  • Local outrage
  • Local authorities grant permission for 150 with stipulation to provide help for local amenities
  • Property Developer horse trades and settles for 100 without helping out local authorities

Directive 2006/24/EC-Directive 2002/58/EC 

According to the directive, member states will have to store citizens’ telecommunications data for a minimum of 6 months and at most 24 months. Under the directive the police and security agencies will be able to request access to details such as IP address and time of use of every email, phone call and text message sent or received. A permission to access the information will be granted only by a court. On 8 April 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union declared the Directive invalid in response to a case brought by Digital Rights Ireland against the Irish authorities and others. (Wikip)

Germany’s Merkel urges new EU law on data tracking
15th January

An EU directive on data retention was made invalid by a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling last April.

That 2006 directive opened up private communications data to police, but message content was still protected.

Ms Merkel’s statement contrasts with the uproar in Germany last year over US mass surveillance of internet traffic.

She was speaking in the lower house of parliament (Bundestag) about measures to prevent attacks like the killing of 17 people in Paris last week by Islamist gunmen. (BBC)

Have have ever met a poor property developer? Or builder?
So as we know that banning encryption is clearly a stupid planning request, but we can see that providing the requirement for several hundred million or possibly a billion pounds plus of IT expenditure would be of great benefit to the private IT sector. The very same people who are calling Cameron an idiot – I’m not so sure.

Getting the OtpKeyProv HOTP plug-in to work with Google Authenitcator

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Supported Generator Tokens

All generator tokens that follow the OATH HOTP standard (RFC 4226) are supported.

The OtpKeyProv plug-in is truely awasome!
http://keepass.info/plugins.html#otpkeyprov

Slight problem, no documentation on getting it to work with Google Authenitcator.

The solution was on this page:
http://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329220/thread/be102635/#e37a

Google authenticator secret key for manual setup for HOTP (counter based – not time based) base32 secret keys length are in multiples of 8 characters. With no padding of “=” which KeePass allows.

But I’m pasting it here in case it drops off the face of the Internet – thank you “Wellread1”:

The difficulty arises with Google authenticator user documentation. It is expecting a base32 (secret) key. You must set the Secret Key to base32 in KeePass and restrict your Secret Key to the base 32 character set: a-z, 2-7. KeePass allows “=” but Google authenticator does not. Also base32 secret keys length are in multiples of 8 characters.

A test configuration that works:

Set the Configure OTP Lock:
Length: 6
Secret key: abcdefghxz234567 (base32)
Counter: 0 (Dec)
Number of OTPs: 3
Look ahead: 9 (allows 3 failed KeePass unlock attempts using newly generated OTPs before a recovery becomes necessary because the counters have become too far out of sync.)

Set Google authenticator
Secret Key: abcdefghxz234567
counter: counter based

The first 6 OTPs will be:
442843
724600
994767
847513
160505
583080

Make sure you never lose the Secret key or you will be permanently locked out of KeePass if the counters get out of sync. Also recognize that the true secret is the Secret Key not the OTPs.

 

Bitcoin HRMC, Fidor Bank AG & bitcoin.de, RIPPLE next then FOREX

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There was this posting on coindesk.com the other day:

Bitcoin exchanges operating in the UK do not have to register with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) under money laundering regulations, the government department has revealed. 8th July 2013.

http://www.coindesk.com/hmrc-uk-bitcoin-exchanges-dont-have-to-register-under-money-laundering-regulations/

Then this posting yesterday 11th July announcing the Bitcoin.de exchange being able to work with a German Clearing Bank (Fidor Bank AG), which will then be able to fully comply with any KYC/AML requirements . This looks like it near enough caused Bitcoin to jump 10% overnight.

However it should be bourne in-mind that I believe the most single important investment money or otherwise in the Bitcoin arena is Google’s recent investment in Ripple.com or OpenCoin (the company), this is an allied trading platform with a Bitcoin API – those network if secure enough could be a competitor to all merchant services clearing, like VISA and Mastercard – hence Google’s investment.

Note that Google have invested – small change, but it’s still VERY telling.

Ripple, billed as “the world’s first open payment network”, may lack the rebel allure of Bitcoin itself, but its distributed model could patch one of Bitcoin’s chief weaknesses, namely its reliance on a few sometimes less-than-transparent exchanges. Of course, Ripple will be usable for the exchange of other currencies, too, and it arguably sits alongside other new financial technology startups such as Transferwise.

http://gigaom.com/2013/05/14/google-ventures-invests-in-opencoin-the-firm-behind-bitcoin-exchange-ripple/

RIPPLE now allows you to pay anybody in Bitcoin as of 2nd July 2013 in a way that might promote Bitcoin to be used for FOREX. Note that the first bitcoin exchange – bitstamp.net is a British company, yet unable to find a British bank to sort out payments yet… Although bitstamp.net do require all the KYC documents to open an account with them, so the exchange is already in a prime position to completely challenge mt.gox – Americans, you’ve just got to love’em.

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/opencoin-extends-ripple-network-to-include-all-bitcoin-merchants-and-users-1807681.htm

Disclosure: The author has accounts with most of the bitcoin exchanges with KYC requirements or otherwise.

test

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New Media and money hit hyper drive this week Feb 20th 2012

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Well it’s not often the Daily Mail gets have a story half right….

P2P Real-time TV
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2098759/Tribler-New-file-sharing-technology-IMMUNE-government-attacks.html
http://torrentfreak.com/p2p-next-introduces-live-bittorrent-streaming-080718/

Barclays launches pay by mobile – Pingit, nothing radical but with zero charges, Pingit to be available to non Barclays customers in the future. Note well – no Windows Mobile support.

Did somebody say in the back, reduce the budget deficit in ten years? Wow nice one George! On the ‘ead, it’s diamond Geezer.
And – so if you provide this transaction free banking for the proletariat scum, we won’t split commerical from retail banking…. Interestingly put there Mr Cross.
http://www.barclays.co.uk/pingit

Rashberry Pi meets the real world, an Android phone you can plug into your monitor, keyboard/mouse and use as a PC – using all you cloud data with a local copy in your phone. Due 2012. This leaves Microsoft and Apple eating dust. Linux could REALLY GO mainstream 2013. My old Nokia N73 had the processing power of my first work PC of 1993.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/21/ubuntu_for_android/

WhatApp Messenger – disruptive technology ALERT, this KILLS Blackberry, as it removes it’s USP, it’s killing text by IM. Will they need to IPO and why?

Industry analysts at Ovum reckon mobile network operators lost more than $13bn in 2011 as SMS finally gets replaced – a staggering estimate backed by stats from Allot.

But what’s most interesting is that among the free messaging services, such as Facebook and Yahoo!, 18 per cent of ‘net messaging traffic is now being generated by WhatsApp – a paid application that seeks to replicate the text experience, standing in stark contrast to the ad-supported services that hope to make money from advertising aimed though behavioural analysis.

This is 18% on a 250 million user survey.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/21/over_the_top_sms/

Atos boss Thierry Breton defends his internal email ban by 2014

Mark’s CRUCIAL 2012 Trends

  • Internet Messenging – cross-platform, like WhatApp / Fring
  • Encryted P2P Email for Dummies – Zot protocol -> Friendika < - Most important for anonymous
  • Real Time P2P TV – Tribler & live.bitorrent < - Second most important for anonymous
  • Linux goes mainstream – Ubuntu on Android
  • Pingit – availble to any UK current account bank holder

Microsoft you provide me work – thank you

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Set Google as default search

IE v9 shit

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/instant-about.html
http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features.html

http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators.html

Updates in XP – just plain FUCK OFF in XP Pro. If you run Microsoft Windows, your machine has high degree of being hit by a Zero Day Exploit, so why loose 15% of your boot up time to all the patches, that alledgely make it more secure? TLD4 – BBC Newest Adobe zero-day PDF exploit ‘scary,’ says researcher

Fuck off updates in XP Home

How to burn HP Recovery Disc without using Recovery Manager?

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http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-compaq/132849-how-burn-hp-recovery-disc-without-using-recovery-manager.html

Re: How to burn HP Recovery Disc without using Recovery Manager?
you can restore the MBR, the procedure is given below and then use the

Quote:
F11 key to restore your system completely. After that you can burn your recovery discs.

This procedure will perform a destructive restore ( delete all data on the hard drive). So make sure you backup your data before starting out.

The recovery partition is visible as

Quote:
D:
after a clean install. It may be another drive letter on your system so make sure you change it to D: . Explore this recovery partition, the files may be hidden so you may need to go to

Quote:
Tools > Folder Options > View >
, select

Quote:
show hidden files and folders
, and uncheck

Quote:
Hide Extensions for known File types
and uncheck

Quote:
Hide protected operating system files ( Recommended )
. Then you must be able to view a folder named

Quote:
miniNT
and inside this folder
Quote:
System32
.

Make sure you have two files inside the D:\miniNT\System32 folder, the first one

Quote:
MBRInst.exe
and the second one

Quote:
MBR.ini
now go to
Quote:
Start > RUN >
type
Quote:
D:\miniNT\System32\MBRInst.exe /ini D:\miniNT\System32\MBR.ini /r /q
and hit enter.

restart your system, your system will boot into recovery mode & resotre your system completely, after which you can create your recovery disks.

hope this helps

regards

Last edited by cluelessME : 08-29-2007 at 04:16 AM.

This jem is copied in case the original site goes tits up.

Leeenux v4 install issues on eee 4G surf (aka 701)

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When booting off yoru USB stick it will hang at:
boot:
press the TAB key and type “live”
wait a long time
User = “eee” password is blank

hit the “install v4” icon when you see it 🙂

When Leeenux starts, it may ask you for keyring password. Enter "2", and then do the following:
1. Open up your Home Folder
2. Press CTRL-H (or click View>Show Hidden Files)
3. Find a folder called .gnome2 (it has a period at the beginning of the name) and open it by double clicking on it
4. In side of the .gnome2 folder, there is another folder called keyrings. Open it up.
5. Delete any files you find within the keyrings folder
6. Restart the computer

Do above or you will have to keep entering your keyring to get remembered WiFi to work

alt-col2 GA-8SIMLNF Packard Bell Missing Multimedia Audio Controller SOLVED

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There’s been a lot of talk about this renogade OEM Gigabyte mobo – maybe too much talk.
mobo GA-8SIMLNF R2

Ordinarily the Audio_Realtek_5.10.0.5628_XPx86_A.zip driver crashes out with this dialogue box:

updatedriverforplugandplaydevices failed
-536870397

Solution.
Get hold of the R111.zip from I cannot remember through the madness of it all!
Which essentially the same stuff

Google “sis drivers windows xp 7012”

Go to the XP directory
And edit the SIS7012.inf file

At the end of the [SIS] section
add to end:
%SiS7012.DeviceDesc%=SiS7012, PCI\VEN_1039&DEV_7012&SUBSYS_200B1631

The Hardware ID key was missing so the mobo motherboard sound chip is screwy.

Job sussed – DONe

iPad product launch timing

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Introducing YouTube HTML5 Supported Videos – WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2010
Will Apple’s new iPad support Adobe Flash when it ships in March? / Apple video shows Flashed iPad – the Register 29/01/2010

Wired January 30, 2010 quotes Jobs as saying: “They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.”

And here’s a great piece that is common to all these mobile internet devices (MIDs)

Apple + iPad + Huxley = Orwellian nightmare
If the iPad is a big success, we’ll all be at the mercy of one of the world’s biggest control freaks: Apple

John Naughton
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 31 January 2010

Apple boss Steve Jobs shows off the new iPad, criticised for being ‘just a big iPhone’ but potentially another world-beater. Photograph: Kimberly White/Reuters

WATCHING STEVE JOBS unveil the Apple iPad, what came to mind was something that Neil Postman, the most influential media critic since Marshall McLuhan, once said. Our future possibilities, Postman thought, lay on a spectrum bounded by George Orwell at one end, and by Aldous Huxley at the other: Orwell because he believed that we would be destroyed by the things we fear; Huxley because he thought that we would be undone by the things we love.

As the internet went mainstream, the Orwellian nightmare has evolved into a realistic possibility, because of the facilities the network offers for the comprehensive surveillance so vividly evoked in 1984. Governments everywhere have helped themselves to powers to read every email or text you’ve ever sent. And that’s just the democracies; authoritarian regimes are far more intrusive.

Until recently, the Huxleian nightmare seemed a more distant prospect. Then, two years ago this month, Jobs launched the iPhone, a product that was initially underestimated by many commentators (this columnist included) but which has radically transformed the mobile phone market.

What was revolutionary about the iPhone is that it’s a powerful handheld computer that can also be used to make voice calls. But it’s the computing bit that matters – a fact implicitly confirmed by Apple when it launched the iPod Touch, which runs the iPhone operating system but doesn’t make calls. A year after that launch, Apple revealed its strategy for harnessing the device’s computing power by launching the app store – a marketplace for small, mostly inexpensive, programs that could run on the phone. This generated a perfect storm of software development: there are now more than 100,000 apps available, and more than 3bn have been downloaded since the app store launched. At a stroke the consumer software business has been transformed. As ever, the New Yorker’s cartoonists are tracking the change in the zeitgeist. In one recent cartoon a depressed-looking man arrives home and is greeted by his anxious-looking wife: “Bad news, hon,” he says. “I got replaced by an app.”

The iPhone evokes powerful emotions. Users gibber lovingly about it and become dependent upon it. They buy lots and lots of apps. And, most significantly, they find that they use their PCs less – sometimes a lot less. They discover, in other words, that the phone has become their de facto gateway to the internet.

Which brings us to the iPad. Critics and naysayers of all stripes piled in to complain that it was “just a bigger iPod Touch”. Spot on: that’s exactly what it’s intended to be. Good though the iPhone/Touch was, it has one drawback — the screen’s rather small. The iPad’s screen is bigger and better. And it has a beefier processor, so it handles graphics brilliantly. It’s a racing certainty, therefore, that the possibilities of this improved display performance will lead to another explosion in apps.

As with the first release of the iPhone, there has been lots of carping about alleged deficiencies: no camera, no physical keyboard, no USB slot, no removable battery, no memory card slot, doesn’t do Flash, etc. Some of these probably don’t matter much. Or, in Stephen Fry’s words: “They all fall away the minute you use it … No YouTube film, no promotional video, no keynote address can even hint at the extraordinary feeling you get from actually using and interacting with one of these magical objects.”

Which is where I begin to think of Huxley and Soma, the hallucinogenic, hangover-free drug in Brave New World that makes users contented with their (subjugated) lot. If the iPad takes off as the iPhone did, then it will have as disruptive an impact on the computing and media industries as the Apple phone has already had on mobile telephony.

And if that happens then we will all have to take a long, hard look at the company that has made it possible.

For the implication of an iPad-crazed world – with its millions of delighted, infatuated users – is that a single US company renowned for control-freakery will have become the gatekeeper to the online world. The iPad – like the iPhone – is a closed, tightly controlled device: nothing gets on to it that has not been expressly approved by Apple. We will have arrived at an Orwellian end by Huxleian means. And be foolish enough to think that we’ve attained nirvana.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Microsoft TomTom Patent II – Did somebody say wheel?

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Microsoft may have stirred some corporate spot light the sort it doesn’t want, in the vacuum of an economic slow down that will wipe out sales of “Windows 7” new PCs and thus Office for Win7 sales where the meat is in the MS profit (for the shareholders).

hmm this could snowball, if the analyst figures come into play for Q1/Q2 2010 before the action goes to trial 🙂 The proverbial would hit the FAN. Figures in public domain, spotlight in the computer and financial sectors media – BANG!

Deduced dividend leaks out predicting Q1/Q2 2010 profits, followed by punitive damages issued by the US Government with very little effort from the FOSS Community. This would then force the analysts and brokers into having to declare Microsoft a SELL until Q3/Q4 2010 figures come into being or some incredible good announcement to over look another set of appalling figures caused through this unusual economic downturn.

Again in Q3/Q4 2010 figures are going to be a blood bath because of the PC consumer slowdown is going to stop the market dead in it’s tracks. The market for PCs going to people who do not currently have a computer is practically ZERO for all intents and purposes.

  1. What are the users going to be able to do in windows 7 that you cannot do with Windows XP that justifies $350 for a new computer?
  2. When people cannot pay their mortgage because they lost their job, and they going to buy a new PC?
  3. If you are retired, or about to retire you will be seeing your pension vapourising and stock market seriously affecting your long term financial prosperity – are you going to buy a new PC?

And the buggers are even starting to print money to prop up this whole charade, and remember what happened when somebody last tried that stunt… IE printed money out of thin air.

See quantitative easing.

Bummer we could almost turn it into a sad short selling sport, to “spot” stock in the correct sequence in order to do short selling roll overs with the profits from each sinking. Now all you need to do is think laterally about products and their associated industries, and for the industries that float into your mind, think about the suppliers lead times and inventory levels held for a particular line item or BOM. Scary or what?

They will have to switch the financial systems off in every single electronic settled market place if the hedge funds started doing this – which they will. Surely?

Because as I say to people, if you’ve just thought about it, the odds are if you Google around your thought meme. You’ll find a community of like minded thinking individuals, and this networking is being accelerated by del.icio.us and Mag.nol.ia and other folksonmy driven bookmarking systems in our 2.0 world.

Did somebody say wheel? (PS I had a drink this evening 🙂 so it may not make much sense!

Microsoft TomTom Patents I

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I think it could very well be, but the interesting observation is from the people who perceive the action is criminal on Microsoft’s part, would must surely hit the headlines from a Business Analyst point of view?

Submitted by asmiller-ke6seh on March 6, 2009 – 12:56 P.M.

It sounds like Microsoft is knowlingly counselling the violation of an existing contract which their patent licensees have previously committed to. This could put Microsoft in violation of such federal laws as Taft-Hartley. Microsoft may find that this ends up being a nuclear option, and not a good defense.

And the most interesting comment I found to be this one:

Time to Sue or Prosecute MS for racketeering
Submitted by Marty on March 6, 2009 – 5:38 P.M.

If M$ entered these deals with non-disclosure agreements, knowing that the non-disclosure is intended to hide their licensee’s violation of GPL licensing, then it sounds like Microsoft may be guilty of collusion and racketeering. Whoever is responsible for protecting the patents and licesning for GP licenses should sue MS and ask for a big-time punitive settlement. And the gov. ought to look into possible criminal implications.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/linux_companies_sign_microsoft_patent_protection_pacts

&

http://digg.com/linux_unix/The_Real_Reason_for_Microsoft_s_TomTom_Lawsuit