Scatter brain

too much power?

2006-08-21T09:13:00.000+10:00

In a recent post on my friends blog he laments the use of power currently in use.

However I don't see a problem with using more power per se.

The root of the problem is the short sighted policies of global business.

In his book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, Joel Bakan argues that in its current legal guise, the modern day corporation is legally obliged to seek a profit for shareholders regardless of the damage it causes. In fact directors have been prosecuted by shareholders for pursuing altruism in there business, and any non profitable activities have to tempered with reasons to show how it benefits future profits.

The psychopathic search for profit of these corporations are the root of the reason that we continue to use power from environmentally damaging sources, and in a way that directly damages the environment. E.G. burning fossil fuels creates pollution and "greenhouse" gases as a by product, which has been shown to contribute to global warming, which drives up the demand for extra power use in summer to power Air conditioners.

A vicious cycle if ever there was one. Unfortunately, recent wars in Oil rich regions, some would say instigated by US corporate pressure groups, and the increasing difficulty of finding and extracting more oil, only drives up it's value, which again can lead to more profits to the unscrupulous.

The sooner GM and Honda and the like, actually start to sell their hydrogen fuel-cell cars, rather than just taunt us with them, and the petro-chemical companies start to ramp up the distribution of theses fuel-cells the better.

Hydrogen is plentiful and burns with no adverse environmental side effects so clearly has benefits for the world at large, and it can be made by anyone with access to water, thus removing the stranglehold of oil cartels. This in itself is a reason that the greedy corporation, would want to limit hydrogen's practical use, until they have cornered the production and distribution of it.

There is also no reason why the production of hydrogen from water, can't in itself be environmentally friendly. All that is needed is electricity and if that electricity could be generated from renewable sources we'd all be better off.

So lets stop fighting wars for oil and spend the cash setting up an infrastructure for clean fuel that we can make ourselves.

How popular am I?

2006-05-19T09:51:00.000+10:00

I was checking out Google recently and came across a feature that I'd never used.
Basically it lets you see who has links to your site!

All you have to do is type "link:your.domain.here" into the search bar and it comes back with all the webpages that link to yours!
kinda handy.
see this link for more details

Seems like my sites (which I've been very slack at maintaining) have as much poularity as they deserve. None! :-)
guess I'd better talk about less boring stuff!

Differentiate

2005-07-25T20:30:00.000+10:00

I've just come back from a 2-week holiday in the USA. I'd never been there before and was looking forward to it.

I went to Nashville, Miami and the Florida Keys. America is a very nice place, with loads of space for people to be people. There is a lot of wealth and the people are nice.

However they are nice but dumb! What I mean is they aren't stupid (well obviously some are very stupid) but narrow-minded.

London has just been bombed so as a token Brit I was frequently asked about what I thought about those terrorists. I said that they should be stopped, obviously, and that a few nutters shouldn't ruin life for everyone. And if that meant that some were shot by the police because they ran or resisted when being arrested then tough luck!

I was shocked then by the views of normal intelligent people (teachers, businessmen, students and pensioners) in response.

"Damn right! We should kill or lock-up all those Muslims!" seemed to be a common response. When I pointed out that not all Muslims were terrorists heated arguments ensued.

In the end I gave up because the crux of problem was that they didn't seem to understand the difference between the two statements:

"All Muslims are Al Quaida terrorists" and "All Al Quaida terrorists are Muslims"!

I pointed out that the argument was ridiculous and if you believed that argument then it would be the same as "All IRA terrorists are Catholics Christians therefore all Catholic Christians are terrorists" and therefore "All Catholics are Christians therefore all Christians are Catholic and as all Catholic Christians are terrorists, as prooved earlier then all Christians are terrorists!". My argument brought slurs that I was being anti-religious!

The failing to differentiate the meaning between sentences that contain the same words but in crucially different order seemed to be endemic. For instance, Nashville is in the "Bible Belt" and to use expletives (cuss words) like "Jesus Christ!" or worse "God Damn!" brings reprimands from strangers who overhear you. It seems that they don't understand the difference between "God Damn!" (a request that God damns something) and "Damn God" (an ecclesiastical conundrum)

Weirder still is that is OK to substitute "G.D." for "God Damn" as in, "I think we should shoot all those G.D. Muslims!" So either the person who'd say that is stupid or a hypocrite, or that person's god is illiterate and too stupid to spot the substitution.

In the Beginning was the Word!

Thank you Parliament

2005-07-25T20:18:00.000+10:00

On the 6th July, just before I went on Holiday the EU Parliament rejected the recent bill for Software patents.

Sanity is resored for now, but we must stay vigilant for further attacks on our freedoms by the pressure groups of the big corporations!

for the full details read the "Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure" story

I'll now remove my Banana republic banners from my forum signatures! Well done everyone!
:-)

Semantics

2005-06-01T19:24:00.000+10:00

I was checking in for a commercial flight over the bank holiday.
I approached the counter and handed over my passport and flight details.

The Check-in girl started her "before-you-get-a-boarding-card" spiel.

"Did you pack you bags yourself?", the check-in girl asked.
  "Yes", I replied
"Have you got anything sharp in your hand luggage?"
  "No", says I
"Could anyone have tampered with your bags without you knowing?", she asked

What was this??!

A trick question, especially designed by the "Bottom Inspectors"?

How was I supposed to answer that?

  "Of course they could have. But I wouldn't know!".

At which point I'd get frog-marched off to the "Rubber-Glove Brigade's" torture and humiliation den, or should I answer, "No".

At which point when I get a random search at X-ray the aforementioned unknown Tamperer's tamperings are discovered, and because I've already agreed that it couldn't be his fault I'm again frog-marched off to the "Bottom Inspectors' grotto"!

I decided to just shake my head and cross my fingers (and legs) at X-ray

:-)

2005-05-10T08:23:00.000+10:00

FA Cup Flying Adventure: Departure

With everyone strapped in, Northy in the Co-pilot seat, as he was the
heaviest, I ran through the pre-flight checks, briefed the guys on what to
do if we had to force land, and called the tower for my departure clearance.

Almost immeadiatley, unusual for Newcastle Airport, we were cleared to back
track on Runway 25 and given departure instruction to route south via the
Tyne Bridges. Perfect, I'd get to do the scenic departure over Newcastle's
St. James's Park Stadium on route to The Millennium Stadium.

We were soon heading over the Tyne and all my passengers were talking
excitedly and taking pictures.

For this Flight I was going to fly straight down the country over-flying
Leeds-Bradford then onto the Trent VOR (TNT) then onto the Brecon VOR (BCN)
via a slight dog-leg to miss Birmingham Internationale's airspace, and then
to Cardiff. I decided not to fly direct to Cardiff As I'd be forced through
the low-level corridor under the Manchester CTR, and I could do without the
stress!

I'd bought some helpful navigation aids,
VORTrack
plotters, that you clip onto your chart and they allow you to generate a
visual fix on the chart very quickly. I explained to Northy how to set them
if I gave him a bearing from a VOR or a distance from a DME, so I could ask
him to do it for me so that I could concentrate on flying when we got to the
clouds over Wales. They are such a simple device that he picked it up in no
time. I've never used VORTrack Plotters before and had spent the previous
evening sticking the press-studs to all the VOR's on my charts. For those
pilots reading this, I thoughly recommend them. The "picture" you get of
your position is instant and accurate, and you don't have to Fly the plane
whilst drawing on your map!

We overflew Leeds-Bradford at Fight Level 40 (4000 feet on pressure
setting 1013 m Bar)and the Air traffic controller said,
"Golf-Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah, are you going to the match?". "Affirm", I
replied. "I hope you win!", he said.
Presumably he was a Leeds fan and like most other football clubs in Britain was a certified ManU hater, who assumed that because I was flying from Newcastle that I was a Newcastle
fan. Unlike my Geordie passengers, I'm a ManU fan.
"Me too", I answered, smiling to myself

As we flew south, We had to drop down to 2000ft to cross the main
air corridor into Manchester Airport the Category A L975. It just so happened that this was
above the Pennine hills, and so we were whizzing through fantastic scenery at
500ft above the moors. The look on the faces of some of the hill walkers as
we flew overhead was priceless!

This for me was the best bit of the whole
flight, as it was so low that you could see all the details on the ground
and also get a feeling of speed and flying. I felt a bit Top Gun! :-)

The trouble started as we regained our cruising altitude after the
corridor and set course for Wales. We could see the weather ahead was very
cloudy, so I decided to climb to FL60 to fly above it. After 10 minutes of
holding my heading I looked down and was aware that a particular reservoir I'd spotted over my left wing hadn't moved very far. Now I know what you're thinking, reservoirs are large
bodies of water and don't tend to move around the country side, but you know
what I mean.

The Problem was the wind speed. It was clearly a lot higher
than forecast, and it was right on the nose of our little plane. I had to
drop down into slower air. I descended to FL40 and right into the clouds.

I wasn't particularly troubled by this as I hold the UK IMC rating
that allows me to travel IMC within the UK (with higher minima than the full
Instrument flying rating), and the DME to Brecon started counting down
nicely. However, it wasn't counting down as fast as I'd like and I my
workload went up. Not only were we flying towards Wales, a particularly
hilly country, in cloud but I started to re-do my Speed/Time/Distance
calculations.

We were behind schedule. By half an hour! In clouds and rain, with
the nearest suitable airport to land in bad weather the same distance behind
us as our destination was in front. At this rate I'd be able to land with 15
minutes of fuel remaining. just enough to divert to Swansea or Bristol if
necessary. I checked the ATIS for Cardiff and it was still above my
minimum's, so I decided to go for it.

In hind sight I should have turned
round and used the tail wind to help me back to Birmingham.

I continued on towards the Brecon VOR, all the time watching my fuel
gauges and re-doing S/T/D calculations. The wind had picked up again and we
were traveling slower again! By this point I didn't have the option to turn
back to Birmingham, it was going to be tight! I reckoned that our flight time
was going to be 3 and a half hours.... The same amount of time as the fuel
we had on board. Talk about stress! I had already leaned the mixture as much
as possible and adopted a slight nose-up attitude to increase my distance
per gallon ratio. My passengers were oblivious to the drama taking place in
the front left seat.

I called Cardiff early and asked for a vectored ILS approach. I
wanted to shave off the distance that going to the Brecon VOR then south
would add. Thankfully Cardiff put me on a heading straight to them. I was a
bit worried that there would be loads of traffic into Cardiff and I would
then have to request that I jumped the queue, thus announcing to the world
and my passengers the situation I was in. As it turned out we were straight
in and I reported that I was established on the ILS. At 700 feet the we
became visual with the runway and I made a perfect crosswind landing, just
touching down as the stall warner sounded.

Phew!

In the confusion of landing at an airfield that I've never been to
before in heavy rain and what with my brain desperately trying to shut down now that we
were back on the ground I missed my runway exit point and had to taxi all
round the airport to get back to the GA(General Aviation) side of the field, whilst simultaneously taking abuse from the Tower. I didn't mind though. The Cardiff radar had helped get us down safely

Outside it was pissing down! As forecast! The lads were still applauding me
and wanting to get out of the plane for a piss themselves, but I stopped
them until they had taken a picture of the fuel gauges (both reading zero), for posterity! :-)

We jumped out and the ground controllers had thoughtfully sent a
minibus to pick us up, however we all had to line up behind the bus for a 3
and a half hour power piss on the taxi way before we could depart! ;-)

A 5.30am start, a three and ahalf hour flight in bad weather with not enough fuel.

I was knackered!

Now, on to the Match!

FA Cup Flying Adventure: Pre-flight

2005-05-09T23:32:00.000+10:00

5.30 am 17th December 2005. My alarm clock went off and I was out of bed like a shot.

Today was the day of the FA Cup semi-final between Manchester United (my team) and Newcastle United at the Cardiff Millennium Stadium.
The reason I was up so early, I was due to fly myself and three Geordie mates to the match. Kick off was at 3pm and we had an arrival slot for 11.08 BST.
We didn't have a backup plan to get to the game if the flying was out as that would have meant leaving Newcastle before 5.30am in order to make the long journey by car.

I was exceptionally nervous.

I'd been watching the weather reports for a week and they had consistently predicted bad weather on Sunday, Today.
I looked out of the window to be greeted with a perfect clear blue sky! I logged onto The Met Office to check the TAF's.

TAF
CARDIFF EGFF 170310Z 170413 150 11KT 9999 SCT025 BECMG 1012 700 RA BKN014
NEWCASTLE EGNT 170309Z 170413 17003KT 9999 FEW020 TEMPO 0410 4000 BR

METAR
CARDIFF EGFF 170450Z 12009KT CAVOK 03/01 Q1006
NEWCASTLE ENGT 170450Z 00000KT 9999 FEW035 01/00 Q1006

My fears were realised. The weather in Cardiff was due to rain, but that wasn't due to start until sometime between 10am and 12pm, the report for the return leg looked better with Newcastle having just broken clouds at 2000ft and 4000ft.

As I really wanted to go to the game and didn't want to let my mates down, I concluded that the weather would be above my minimum's and so it was all systems go! (note to self, this is very bad practice for pilots, and I should be just as happy not to go if the weather looks bad!)

It was 6.15 a.m. I was up dressed and had had some porridge and bananas for breakfast, I figured I needed the energy for the flight ahead, and I was half way through updating my flight plan and vectoring in the current forecast high-level winds, when my phone rang.
It was my mate Jonny, too exited to sleep ringing up to check if the weather was OK and tell me he was coming round to meet me.

I told him the weather was OK but it'd be close and we had a headwind all the way there, so that would add half an hour onto our flight time. We'd best get going so that we could take off at 8.30 sharp in order to make our arrival slot.

I'd faxed through my flight-plan the previous evening, with flight time estimated at 100 knot airspeed and no wind. At that speed we should be taking 2 hours and 15 minutes. With the current wind added we'd be taking 2 hours 45 mins. With 4 blokes on board we couldn't have full tanks due to weight and balance and I'd been at the airport the night before making sure that we had enough fuel on and were within limits.

We actually had 3 and a half hours of fuel on board, (which was slightly overweight but still in balance) and I figured that with both Newcastle (EGNT) and Cardiff (EGFF) having such long runways we'd be OK for takeoff and with two airports (Bristol and Swansea) within 15-20 minutes flying time from Cardiff we had enough endurance.

After picking up the other two passengers, Northy and Stuz, we were off to the Airport.

Everyone was in high spirits, and Stuz who was nervous of flying was even exited. I was trying to shut out the chatter and get my head into pilot mode. I wasn't having much luck and kept doing the time/speed/distance sums over and over, worried that I'd miscalculated.

We arrived at the GA terminal of Newcastle. It was a lovely day!

I pushed the Piper out of the hanger and began my walk-around checks. Stuz took one look at the size of the PA28 and went for a cigarette! :-)

The walk-around ritual had the usual meditative effect, and by the time I called the guys over to get in the plane, I was fully focused for the task ahead.

Is a spade a spade?

2005-04-29T20:36:00.000+10:00

I just went to the toilet at work to be greeted with the sign,

"Restroom closed. Cleaning in progress".

"Restroom"!? The only things I'd rest in there are my sphincters!

It is a toilet.

The trend we see to use "non offensive language", for example "restroom" instead of toilet, or "vertically challenged" instead of short, is a form of control that should be fought at all times.

By limiting the adjectives or nouns in a language we limit the precision of meaning that can be conveyed. If you are unable to convey a specific meaning then conceptually that specification doesn't exist!

The classic example of this is that of the number of words in a language for snow. In Britain we have very few, Snow. A skier will be forced to use adjectives to make his meaning clearer for example "powder snow"

So, for the average Briton there are only two kinds of snow. Snow and powder snow.

An Eskimo will tell you that there are many more types of snow. He is able to be sure of this because in his language there are many more nouns for snow, distinguishing completely different types of snow. He probably has many more adjectives to refine the meaning yet further.
(for further study why not start here http://www.princeton.edu/~browning/snow.html )

A similar refining of language happens in all areas of specialisation. For instance, to a lay-person a hammer is a hammer. But to a craftsman there are many types of hammer, claw-hammer, ball-peen-hammer, sledge-hammer, mallet etc.

If you limit the vocabulary you limit the precision of meaning that can convey and hence you also limit the complexity of ideas that can be discussed and hence perception itself. Are you still sure there are only two kinds of snow in the world?

It is for this reason you should fight to use your language as you want and not succumb to "political correctness".

The powers that be like to use politically correct language because if they can remove "bad" words from the language then the "bad" things vanish with them. It is a semantic trick!

If the word "black" vanishes from the language then conceptually "white vs. black" racism has also disappeared! If there are no toilets and only restrooms then presumable there is no more shit in the world?

Power brokers of all kinds love this trick, because by doing nothing but removing your words they are able to fix all societies problems without doing anything! It also limits your ability to resist their tricks because if you stick to their limited language you will be unable to frame a powerful argument against them!

Take back your language!

Call a spade a spade! (or a shovel or a trowel .... ;-)

6P's

2005-04-27T01:25:00.000+10:00

I was in a panic on Monday 11th April. The FA Cup semi final between Newcastle united and Manchester United was on at the Cardiff Millennium Stadium at 2pm on Sunday the 17th of April.

I Had booked out an aeroplane from the Northumbrian Flying Club, based at Newcastle International Airport. I had arranged for three Geordie mates and me to Fly down to Cardiff for the Match. They had already bought the tickets and Not bothered arranging alternate mode of transport. The reason for my panic was that I'd just read a NOTAM (notice to airmen) that Cardiff was not going to be allowing any more air traffic to land other than that traffic that had already booked a slot.

I had not booked a slot. I felt very stupid about this. I had checked and Cardiff's normal operations didn't require General Aviation (GA) to pre-book. Unfortunately, on Cup final days the traffic is a lot heavier and they did require a slot to be booked.

I rang the air traffic control tower at Cardiff and they informed me that I did indeed need to pre-book and were not to hopeful about my chances as all slot bookings went through the airport and he thought they were all taken, but they gave me the number of the guys at Dragonfly Executive Air Charter, based at Cardiff airport and said I should give them a call.

The fella there took my details and said he'd get back to me and let me know if he could get a slot for me.
He didn't call back so at 4.30pm I rang them again, to be greeted by the answer-phone informing me that the office was shut for the day! Aaargh!

I left a message, but in my heart I knew we were screwed.

I had to hunt for alternatives. Scanning the charts I could see that Swansea was close and there was also a farm strip near Newport. Both towns had a train service, that If we landed on time would be able to get us to Cardiff in time for the game. I called Swansea and provisionally booked there because the weather forecast was not looking good for Sunday and at least they had an instrument procedure published, albeit a tricky one.

I was still worried because the procedure (NDB/DME approach) was trickier than Cardiff's one (NDB/ILS approach), which meant that I didn't want to fly if the weather was bad, and we'd only know a decent forecast at 6am on the day of departure, and by then it'd be too late to drive it!

Luckily for me whilst cycling to work on the Tuesday morning, my phone went off. It was Dragonfly, He'd had managed to get me a slot for Cardiff.

arrival slot 11.08a

I was reminded myself of the military saying, the 6P's, Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance!

The Adventure was still on!

Swings and Roundabouts

2005-04-04T20:23:00.000+10:00

One of my girlfriend's friends, and boyfriend, were visiting briefly and staying with us Friday night. They would be off camping in Northumbria on Saturday.
As a result my girlfriend invited other friends round for tea on Friday night.
While it was nice to have everyone round and chat, I had had a stressful day at work and had a bit of a headache. I wasn't my normal sparkling self, though I tried to join in and have fun until the early hours of Saturday morning.

Saturday came, with no lie-in. My girlfriend's friends left and I had to get on with end of year accounts. More headaches! To make matters worse I had to cancel a flying lesson that I'd booked for early evening, as I forgot that we were going out to see another one of her mates singing in a choir at the Sage Opera house.

Oh Joy of Joys!

I was on the verge of a big sulk, brought on from tiredness and the selfish feeling of wanting some me time. I resolved to keep an open mind and try to enjoy myself rather than sulk :-)

As it turned out the singing stuff was quite good, the Opera house acoustics were brilliant, and when one of the singers did a solo soprano opera bit, I was surprised to find out that I liked it! I never liked Opera singing, but then I've never heard any sung live before. It is hard to believe that such a sound can come from a human being, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up whilst listening.

I went to bed early and sober and left the lasses out partying.

Got up at 9.30 Sunday to go swimming at 10.30. Whilst eating my porridge I watched the early morning Match of the Day repeat on BBC.

When I arrived at the pool I found I was an hour early for my class! The alarm clock was an hour early. Oh well, a brief stroll around town in the sunshine, put a smile on my face.
I'd forgotten that Sunday training is an hour and a half instead of the usual hour, and half way through a very tough session, the coach asked me to move up a lane. Which was nice. Again this made the session even harder.

After training I went home. My girlfriend had left to watch the women's Sunderland FC game, so I was on my own.

Me time, at last!

I did a bit of hacking then went to the airport for my rearranged flying lesson. I was due to fly at 5.30pm but because of re-fuelling delays and people taking longer than their slots I was pushed back to 7.30pm! I didn't mind as I got to fly the simulator and practice the highly technical instrument flying that I was about to do for real. I was therefore much better prepared than usual for the flight.
After take-off the visibility dropped almost immediately and instead of simulated IMC I was now in the real stuff. My instructor asked me to perform various manoeuvres and navigation, then we took up the NDB (Non Directional Beacon) holding pattern, which I think is technically the hardest procedure in instrument flying, followed by an ILS (Instrument landing System) let-down.

It was dark by the time we were established on the ILS but it went perfectly. So, thanks to the delays getting airborne, I got an night landing as well as the Instrument time out of the flight .
After touchdown I went to the pub with the club owner, we had a couple of drinks and talked aeroplanes, helicopters, motorbikes and classic Ferraris. All of which he has! He has a few helicopters, he runs the helicopter flying school as well, and promised to show me round them.

So after a day and a half of not doing what I wanted to do, I had a fantastic Sunday of watching football, swimming (and getting promoted a lane), hacking, flying, drinking and talking engines and helicopters.

It was cool.

And by "cool" I mean totally sweet! :-)

Flying adventure

2005-04-04T19:23:00.000+10:00

The adventure is on!

My friend has just SMS'd me to say that he has the FA Cup semi-final tickets between Manchester United and Newcastle United at the Cardiff Millennium Stadium on the 17th of April.

I have booked out a PA28 Piper Warrior from the aeroclub for the day.

So I'm going to fly myself and three Geordie mates to the match!

This will be my first proper excursion with a specific objective, where the flying is just a means to an end, as it should be. I can't wait, I'm going to book up some IMC (instrument meteorological conditions) refresher lessons so that my skills are sharp and barring storms we should be able to get in at Cardiff

Is Britain in the throes of a quiet coup?

2005-03-15T09:49:00.000+11:00

New Labour, Britain's main "Socialist" party and incumbent government:

Appointed a "Minister without portfolio" to the Cabinet. read :- Propaganda minister
Are trying to introduce ID-Smart-Cards. what information will government departments be able to access about you then? Will you require one in order to get basic services? a job?
The Ex Home Secretary David Blunkett is widely thought of as the most right wing Home Secretary that there has been.
Took Britain to war, against Iraq (Gulf War II), a sovereign, albeit a dictatorship, country that has never attacked Britain or our allies, and whose infrastructure was not capable of such an attack
Has removed powers from the House of Lords (the 2nd chamber of our government) to the point that it is no longer able to block, only delay, the will of the House of parliament to introduce unfair-fair or bad laws. I.E. they have effectively removed the body that applies the "checks and balances" on parliament to make sure it doesn't usurp power.
Used a "War on terror" scare to pass a law "Prevention of Terrorism Bill" that allows the government to imprison anybody indefinitely without trial or the burden of proof if the Home Secretary says that they are dissidents.
David Blunkett was on the radio today hyping up a speech he made today suggesting that the English should have more pride in their Nation identity and traditions.

In January 1933 in Germany there was a "Socialist" political party that came to power, employed propaganda, removed all the checks and balances preventing the leader of the house (the Chancellor) from assuming absolute power, made people carry Papers (ID-Cards) stating their race,religion and other details of interest to the state, attacked a sovereign Nation (Poland) that had not threatened or attacked them or their allies and tried to re-fashion a sense of National Identity and traditions.

They were called the "National Socialist German Workers Party" or in German "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei", which was usually shortened to the "Nazi" party.

Banana Republic

2005-03-08T21:04:00.000+11:00

The European Commission has controversialy adopted its Common Position on the software patent directive.
Despite the fact that it is against the commission's own rules and is opposed by the Open Source Software community, most developers, small businesses and sensible full member countries such as Denmark.

The only people who want Software patents are the greedy corporations who see them as a means to block competition from the Free (as in freedom) software and small entrepreneurial businesses.

The basics, dangers, untruths and politics as well as the blatant unfairness of such patents are comprehensively demonstrated by the FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure) but I'll briefly summarise here.
1) We don't need them. Microsoft, Oracle and other large software vendors got rich without patents. Copyright law is already sufficient to protect an authors rights.

2) Patents are a form of State sponsored Monopoly, the state will help enforce the monopoly to protect the patent holder. The idea being that in order to encourage good ideas and invention (which is good for society) in a country the inventor should be given a 20 window to exploit the idea by patenting it, which in effect documents fully how to re-create the invention, then the patent ends and the idea enters the public domain for the good of society at large. Software patents are being handed out for unoriginal ideas or in areas of common practice where prior art already exists! This would enable a patent holder to force any of its competition to pay for its licenses for practices that they are doing that the patent holder didn't even invent!

3) The cost of defending yourself in court from an unfair patent claim can be enormous. This means that just the threat of a court case can drive competition out of the market even if the claim or the patent are bogus.

4) In the USA the speed at which software patents are being filed caused the patent office to change its procedures so that instead of the rigorous proof traditionally applied to patents (e.g. is it a new idea or a significant improvement on existing technology? Is it non-obvious to an expert in that field? Is there prior art? Is it already common knowledge, does someone already own the patent!? etc) was taking too much time and effort and so they now just let a company claim a patent and then let the courts decide! The court system will profit and so will Big business because this again this makes it expensive for the little guy if a software giant alleges that the patent he owns is theirs and a court battle ensues. Will this happen here in Europe?

5) The effect of monopolies and removing competition and entrepreneurial spirit from an economy is disastrous and always leads to worse products (software) and higher prices. As we become more and more dependent on computers and software to handle our lives (and money!) Do we really want worse software with bad security at a higher price?

6) Some of the best software in the world is Free(as in freedom) Open Source software. You are probably reading this blog because it has been served up by open source web servers that has been running continuously 24/7 for months if not years , the firmware in your home router/firewall is more than likely based on GNU Linux operating system. Which in itself is free and just works. Do you want to loose all of that and put up with the Support centre panacea, "Have you tried re-booting it?"

Support Denmark and other thinking Democracies and help protest about powerful laws being railroaded in to crush the likes of you and me, by un-elected Corporations.

WiFi Security locking your front door

2005-03-05T23:46:00.000+11:00

In reponse to How Secure is WEP?

In-real-life having any locked door is better than no door.

IMHO this is because a pros/cons calculation is performed in the mind of a
potential "Burglar". Even though breaking in is technically easy it requires
the "Burglar" to make a conscious decision to break the law, weighing up
the risk of being seen or leaving evidence to the benefit of routing around
in other people property.

However, imagine that you had the power to get into someone's house without
leaving evidence that ties the crime to you, or even any evidence that a
break-in has occurred. i.e. you completely remove the negative from the
risk/reward calculation. Would you look in you next door neighbours house?
or through the files of a business competitor? It would certainly be more
tempting.

The fact that this cracking a WEP key is relatively easy and not "a very
difficult problem", as is the case with high grade cryptography found in SSL
for instance. Tied to the fact that the act of cracking a WEP key is a
purely passive experience in that you don't need to advertise your presence
by sending out radio signals but just sit and receive them, so you can take
as long as you want to do it, and that even after you have cracked it and
joined the WiFi network, there is no switched network or IP address that
will give away your physical location, and you can be in a car ready to
drive away should someone be sophisticated enough to home in on your signal
make WEP cracking a pretty painless experience with a potentially massive
upside.

Given that most Wifi networks aren't run by security agencies with the
skills and resource to implement counter-surveillance but average Windoze
users at home or in their offices, there is almost no chance of getting
caught at it, and so it becomes a real possibility that if you have such a
network then so-called war-drivers may have had a look at it.

While this may be bad news for people who operate their WiFi networks using
plain WEP or its relatively more safe variants what's the problem for
everyone else?
The Problem is that cracked WiFi networks are the perfect place for the
average "script-kiddie" or more evil people to launch internet attacks from.
Such attacks may just want to create a Distributed Denial of Service attack
an a DNS server in order to intercept a targets requests but the collateral
damage is that viruses and worms are released into the wild in order to
achieve that aim, and as a side effect mess up other people's computers. The
perpetrator will be very difficult to catch in the act, but also should the
authorities trace the source of the attack it will be the legitimate user,
whose network the prep. masqueraded behind who is in the frame.

If this is not bad enough, and you think it serves people right for using
easily virused operating system, what would you do if some one was
committing very bad crimes or downloading illegal child pR0n from your
connection?

While this is a bleak picture, all is not lost.

As you say, cycle your keys at least once a week.
Don't reboot the access point unless you have to.
Do place firewalls on all machines on the internal network if they are
accessible from the WiFi access point.
Do implement a high grade cryptographic Virtual private network (VPN)
between all your hosts (most decent firewalls can handle this) - while it
doesn't prevent anyone joining your network, it does prevent them from
sniffing your network traffic and makes it a LOT harder for them to get into
your computers.
If your WiFi access point allows it do set it up such that only known WiFi
card MAC(hardware) addresses are allowed to join the network. If a cracker
breaks you WEP he still has find a way to join the network.

Whilst these measures are not foolproof, better solutions are on the way
(802.11i for example which was ratified in June 2004) which implements much
harder to crack security.

In Summary you shouldn't be blase about your WiFi's WEP key, but also don't let fear stop you from utilising technology.

Special Massage

2005-02-11T12:38:00.000+11:00

It's funny how certain people have special talents that somehow just seem to manifest themselves without effort.

Ever since I rode my Honda into a stationary object, 'nuff said about that, my left wrist has been knackered. This has been annoying me and restricting my left hand activities for some time now. No, not those sort of activities! For instance doing press-ups has been very difficult because as my wrist approaches an 80 degree bend is starts to hurt. Also any kind of twist will have me begging for mercy.

All the painful wrist bending scenarios get acting out every week in my Aikido class. I know that it hurts but I refuse to give in to my injury, and a small part of my brain thinks that such extreme movements inflicted by someone else may actually help, as I can't bring myself to articulate the joint fully due to the pain.

Luckily tonight, whilst training with a girl in the class whose job is a type of massage, I mentioned that she should be careful when she applied a technique on my left wrist.

"Oh!? What's wrong with it?" ,she inquired. I explained. She held it up, and pressed it in a funny way, which hurt, and said, "Seems OK."

My hand was still throbbing from the way she had pressed it, but on leaving the class it dawned on me that it was no longer hurting! How did she do that? she didn't appear to realise that she had done anything.

It has been hurting for about a year now, so imagine my surprise when it wasn't anymore.

I hope it isn't a temporary thing that will pop back out again tomorrow, but in the meantime, joy.

I wonder if it is an innate skill that she possesses that led her into massage or whether it was just an interest, and because of that she was able to keep up the learning and training until her skill just appears natural and she doesn't even have to be concious of it.

Perhaps all one has to do in life is find away to stay interested in the difficult things that seem important and that will enable you to get past the teething process and towards the mastery.

The difficult part I suppose is in finding some kind of thought or feeling that allows you to stay interested, even if you've done it a million times. I guess that type of thought association is how hypnosis may work. Perhaps I'll give it a try.

PC Upgrade

2005-02-09T03:22:00.000+11:00

Intro

What I really wanted to do was build a completely new system from scratch using AMD' 64 bit CPU's and stacks of RAM and goodies. and in particular I needed to replace the 19" CRT monitor that used to take up all the room on my desk and I had already agreed to sell to a colleague.

My girlfriend graciously agreed that the monitor could be swapped for a TFT flatscreen because, "It'd look better in the room". Which goes to show that she sees my hobby and work tool as an ornament that clutters up the house!
However she pointed out that as we're thinking of travelling next at the end of the year unless I took it with us I'd loose the benefit and waste money and as long as the TFT was less than £250 that would be OK in her book.

It's funny how girlfriends can only be logical when it comes to your money!

But I had to admit she was right in this instance. When buying bits for a computer I always tend to byte the bullet and buy the best upgrade that I can afford at the time, and then suffer as the monetary value of the kit dwindles each day thereafter. The thought of how much "bang/buck" I'd be missing whilst away was too much to bear

Don't get me wrong, it's not the cost of the kit per se that would bother me but the certain knowledge that when I got back I would be able to get a much faster system for the same cash, so I'd be better to wait before shelling out the hard-earned.

Though it'd be laudable to wait, I'm not that patient so decided instead of a completely new system I'd upgrade components to a best value for money option for now.

Requirements

I needed a new hard disk, the 40G disk I currently own is nearly full and rattles a bit now. Wont be long before it fails.
My 19" CRT monitor was great but takes up loads of room on my small desk and I fancy a change to a nice flat screen TFT and I've already sold it to force the issue ;-)

Wants

I wanted a new Graphics card. The GeForce 2MX that has been fine with my mainly text base use of Linux can do 3D hardware acceleration but very slowly, and is no use when it comes to running the Opensource flight simulator "Flightgear". Also it'd be good if it had DVI output to benefit the new TFT monitor.
If your gonna upgrade the GPU you may as well upgrade the CPU. Besides I was running an Athlon XP 1700 and my Asus A7v333 motherboard can easily take more than that

Actions taken

So off went the order.

Oops! here's what happens when you try to buy a new monitor!

£57.50+VAT x 1 - AMD Athlon "Barton" XP2800+ 333FSB (Socket A) CPU - OEM

£5.75+VAT x 1 - Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g)

£52.95+VAT x 1 - Samsung SpinPoint P SP1614N 160GB ATA-133 8MB Cache -

£244.00+VAT x 1 - Viewsonic VP171B-2 17" LCD Monitor - Black
£129.95+VAT x 1 - XFX GeForce 6600 GT 128MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (AGP) - Retail

£5.50+VAT x 1 - Akasa Rounded Ultra ATA133/100/66 IDE Cable (0.9m) - Blue
£2.95+VAT x 2 - Akasa Rounded Ultra ATA133/100/66 IDE Cable (0.45m) - Blue

Sub-Total: £501.55
Shipping: £9.75
VAT: £89.48
Total: £600.78

The Kit Arrives

I Picked up my kit on Friday night and went to work on it at the weekend, but when I read the requirements for the graphics card it specified a minimum 450W power supply. My existing one was 200W !

So I bought a 650W supply from Maplin with 2 x 80mm fans and 1 x 120mm fan.

My case only didn't have any case fans, and I figured that with a more powerful GPU and CPU I'd need better air flow, so I got a Jeantek Phong (£39 inc. VAT ) from PC World (I would have bought a NZXT Nemesis but I couldn't be bothered to wait for the delivery) It has a front 120mm fan and a rear 120mm fan plus an 80mm side vent (with a wind tunnel if I want to add an 80mm fan for the GPU)

My old system had 2 fans. One loud bugger in the PSU and the 90mm fan on my CPU cooler (Zalman flower)

My new system has 7 fans! 2 80mm and a 120mm in the PSU and 2 x 120mm on the case and the 90mm on CPU and the fan on the graphics card! but due to the size of the fans it still sounds quieter than the old system!

Because the rear 120mm fan and the PSU 120mm fan are right next to the Zalman flower, I may experiment with removing the 90 mm fan from the flower and plugging rear fan into the CPU fan socket.

In the end I couldn't resist ordering more memory, so the only bits of my computer that are still the same are the motherboard, DVD drive and CD-writer and floppy disk.

So much for an invisible upgrade!

I had a few panics, putting it together.

I have the motherboard set to jumperless, which means that CPU frequencies and multipliers and voltages can be set from the BIOS. The motherboard detected that the CPU had changed so the bios asked me to specify the frequencies etc. I haven't flashed the BIOS for years and so the "auto" setting that should allow me to pick the correct set-up was no good. The fastest it went up to was 1800Mhz! So I had to specify the multiplier and frequency, but stupidly I'd not looked up the
actual frequency that the Barton core Athlon XP 2800 ran at, so I thought I'd set it low, (same as previous chip Athon XP 1700) and let it boot then look it up online.

But when I started it up the Promise RAID controller was telling me that I'd got the wrong IRQ's and refused to boot! I didn't work out for ages that when I removed all the disks from the motherboard, so I could move it into the new case, I'd originally had the main Drive on the promise controller in a single disk raid array, but after moving I put the disk on
the primary IDE, ironically to reduce boot problems!
Obviously the raid controller was confused when there was no disk. So I disabled RAID and it booted up.

The screen resolution will need editing and possibly some options to Nvidia driver to get the most from
my new much bigger card. but I wanted to do a quick frame rate test just to see the improvement.

I kicked off "glxgears" (cause I'm in Linux not windoze) which is a program that shows three gears
in 3D (glide library) driving each other and outputs the frame rate. It showed aprox 5000 fps.

This may seem a lot but the view window is actually quite small (unless you maximise it) so doesn't take much effort. However I was a bit disappointed as my old card could achieve that, admittedly only when you covered the view so that it didn't actually have to render anything!

I moved the mouse and the whole PC powered off. Not a nice shutdown but a full power-cut! I figured that I'd best go to bed before I tinkered any more. When I woke up this morning and actually read the installation guide for the card, I realised my mistake. the card requires 12V power and has a connector for the PSU to plug into. I'd just left it in standard VGA mode drawing power from the AGP slot, and not plugged into the PSU.
No wonder when it tried to draw 12V from the motherboard, she just shut down to protect herself!

Looked good this morning. no tweaks yet but managed 7300 fps on the small window glxgears and manages to make Flightgear run smoothly

Can't wait to see what it'll be like after I crank it all up and turn the fans up to full power!