Clock's Mind

Firefox - session file invalid error...

2012-01-26T15:39:00.002-05:00

I ran into an issue with Firefox today, and after scouring the web without finding an answer and plowing through the sessionstore.bak file to try to fix it, I finally figured out the issue.

In Firefox 9, the Tools->WebDeveloper->Error Console had the following error:

session file is invalid type error this_initialState.window[0] is undefined

This occurred after FF crashed and I had to kill it - even reboot - and such as it the whole system was bogged down by something. I couldn't find anything on-line about it and started digging in. Firefox would not restore my session - all the tabs and tab groups, etc.

I did a comparison with the new sessionstore.js file that it had, and found that there was a little section that was missing from the default, but present in the backup - in bold below:

{
"windows":[],"selectedWindow":0,"_closedWindows":[{"tabs":[{"entries":[

I removed the text, copied the resulting sessionstore file over sessionstore.js, and viola - firefox reloaded everything!

Hopefully others that have this issue will find this post and not have to spend a couple hours trying to figure out how to get their data back.

What the content industry doesn't get about SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-20T13:36:00.004-05:00

Lamar Smith recently wrote an article for CNN concerning SOPA. However, he doesn't get what is wrong with it, straight from the opening paragraph:

The growing number of foreign websites that offer counterfeit or stolen goods continues to threaten American technology, products and jobs. Illegal counterfeiting and piracy costs the U.S. economy $100 billion and thousands of jobs every year. Congress cannot stand by and do nothing while some of America's most profitable and productive industries are under attack.

Okay, foreign counterfeiting and stolen goods are bad things. However, there is nothing showing that they cost jobs or billions of dollars. Many properly done studies show that piracy of this manner usually helps drive business to the original creator.

For example, someone making a counterfeit handbag won't have the quality of the original. Someone may buy it, but it'll break down, and they'll probably replace it with something from the original - especially if they were in a first-world country (e.g. US, Europe, Japan, and Australia) than to go and get another counterfeit.

Or, take music. The Grateful Dead and They Might Be Giants have both had a long history of encouraging people to copy and use their works. Both are extremely large bands now with very large and loyal audiences. This has not hurt them at all, but rather it drives their sales - as people hear the music and buy more from it when they discovery they like it.

Or take movies. The Anime community has a long history of importing works and dubbing (called Fan Dubs) or subbing (called Fan Subs). As a community they also encourage people to buy the licensed work when it is finally imported and subbed or dubbed for the country. This only introduces the works to bigger audiences, finds new audiences, and builds additional customers. Yes, there are some fans that just won't go the legal route, but most will.

In all cases, that $0.30 lost on one produce to piracy might turn into $5 or $6 down the road in repeat business.

But let's get back to SOPA/PIPA.

The Stop Online Piracy Act protects consumers and innovators by targeting foreign websites that traffic in stolen or counterfeit products, everything from movies to medicine to baby food.

Again, it's a good thing to stop counterfeit products that hurt people - medicine, baby food, etc. But this isn't being targeted at those kinds of things. It's being targeted at copyright infringement, and bypasses Due Process.

That is, it only takes one entity to show up in court and accuse a site (any site) of infringing their copyrights, and the court would be obliged to grant a takeover of the site. The owner isn't necessarily notified until their customers complaint that site is off-line, unless their DNS Registration provider (e.g. GoDaddy, etc.) notifies them as they move the DNS to pointing elsewhere.

This flies in the face of the U.S. Constitution which has a Due Process Clause - mentioned in multiple places: 5th Amendment and the 14th amendment.

The major backers of SOPA/PIPA - namely the Content industry (MPAA, RIAA, TimeWarner, NBC Universal, Disney, etc.) after having to go through Due Process for years and then losing in court for not being able to name the infringers - or having to show why they should be able to get those names and sue them to start with - is tired of Due Process, so they could really care less about it at the moment. (Though they probably will regret that should SOPA/PIPA ever pass.)

This information does a disservice to consumers, and it is being disseminated by those who have profited from working with illegal websites that steal and sell America's intellectual property.

There is a lot of dis-information yes; and it is being propagated primarily by the backers of SOPA/PIPA. Those against it are point out its actual results. The recent Internet Blackout day shows exactly what will happen should SOPA/PIPA pass. Google and others have a very good right to fear SOPA/PIPA and not because they profit from it. (BTW, I am speaking out against it and showing the problems with it too, but I do not profit from any infringing activities as Lamar claims I might since I am against it.)

The reality is that SOPA/PIPA have a very big legal affect that will severely hamper the creativity of the markets, especially on the Internet.

For instance, I am getting read to start a company. I have a product planned that I am going to make, and I'll have a website. However, if another company complains that I am infringing their copyright - without even showing it, just making an accusation - they could shutdown my start-up's Internet site, and effectively close up shop for the company. All because of an accusation by some entity that doesn't like what my company is providing, and would rather sue and shut me down than innovate themselves.

The online blackout that occurred this week, which included Wikipedia, was also misleading. Wikipedia has nothing to fear from SOPA. It is ironic that a website dedicated to providing information knowingly offered misinformation about the bill. SOPA will not harm Wikipedia, domestic blogs or social networking sites.

Wikipedia has everything to fear as all that needs to happen is for someone to upload some content that someone else claims infringes their copyright and ALL of Wikipedia gets shutdown.
So again, Lamar is providing dis-information.

Hyperbole has been rampant in the debate about SOPA. However, the bill in no way censors the Internet. It only targets activity that is already illegal, and only targets foreign websites that are dedicated to illegal or infringing activity. In fact, it is similar to laws that already govern websites based in the U.S.

Censorship automatically occurs when you start shutting down websites based on accusations. It would be one thing if the site and its owner had gone through the courts and were found completely guilty. However, the content providers don't like (i) how much effort it takes for them to do that, (ii) their likelihood of success that way, or (iii) the time it takes. However those three things are there to protect the whole of society from the 'mob', to ensure the rights under the law of all involved. SOPA/PIPA are 100% against that - a direct reflection of their supporters who probably had a very big hand in drawing the bill.

What has not been publicized is the broad support for SOPA. It has been endorsed by a diverse group of organizations, including the National Association of Manufacturers, International Union of Police Associations, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Songwriters Association and the National Center for Victims of Crime. The bill has even united strange bedfellows: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO. It's not every day that you see business and labor on the same side of an issue.

This just goes to show you that the organizations that support it have a big hand in commerce and not much in the way of protecting citizens. National Songwriters Association is part of the RIAA. RIAA and MPAA also have strong ties to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO; several of the companies therein (Time Warner, etc.) also have ties to device manufacturers through their DVD/BlueRay businesses. They also have a strong hand politically generating lots of money into politics. So again, the above are not surprising to see.

Even the White House has weighed in, endorsing the need for legislation

And the current administration at the White House has very strong ties to Hollywood. So again, it would only be surprising if they were against SOPA/PIPA. Same for any democratic organization (e.g. Unions) - and unions tend to back each other. So the Actors Guild would probably support things by the Police Union, and vice versa - the whole "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" thing (e.g. Old boy's network) as two appear strong than one.

respect the First Amendment and believe that any legislation passed by Congress must protect and defend our constitutional rights. But illegal and criminal activity is not protected by the First Amendment simply because it takes place online. For example, there is no First Amendment right to view, distribute or download child pornography over the Internet. Like child pornography, the theft of intellectual property is also illegal in the United States.

The major issue is not the First Amendment. It's the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments - the right to Due Process.

The Stop Online Piracy Act works by cutting off the money to foreign illegal sites and making it harder for online criminals to market and distribute illegal products to U.S. consumers. The bill includes provisions that "follow the money" to cut off the main sources of revenue to these sites, and also protects consumers from being directed to foreign illegal websites by search engines. And it provides innovators with a way to bring claims against foreign illegal sites that steal and sell their technology, inventions and products.

But you wont' just get foreign sites. You'll get backlash that will involve domestic sites as well. And why would they stop with foreign sites? They'll do their best to show that a domestic site has foreign ties and therefore should be shutdown just the same - and they'll probably do it by just showing that the site does business internationally (which ALL Internet sites do by default).

Unfortunately, some critics simply want to maintain the status quo that harms U.S. companies, consumers and innovators.

Actually, I don't like the Status Quo either. We started down an ugly road back in 1998 with the DMCA - something that needs to be repealed at least in part.

I also believe current laws provide us all the tools necessary to combat piracy and counterfeiting without the need for SOPA/PIPA or even the ACTA Treaty that has been worked on in secret.

Iowa Primaries...

2012-01-04T09:19:00.002-05:00

Well, congratulations to Santorum on doing so well in the Iowa primaries. I hope the momentum continues and that you get the nomination.

Please consider one thing - making Newt Gingrich your VP. The two of you would make a great pair for the main race.

Qt5 - Introducing QDaemonApplication

2011-09-18T21:36:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I'm not quite done with QDaemonApplication to the point where it's even testable yet. However, I wanted to at least announce it to get feedback on the structure I am using. Questions are good, and it'll help it be more robust in the end.

Also, I'd like to note that I'm not quite use to PIMPL so if there's something I did wrong in that respect, please let me know so I can correct it. I also use a slightly different programming style; however, I tried to keep it similar to what I am finding in other areas of Qt for consistency. Please let me know if there is anything inconsistent in that respect too.

So with that said...

I originally wrote about the effort in a previous blog post (see Calling Contributors and Qt5 & a major update for QtService - QDaemonApplication), and I finally found some time to be able to work on it, still with the goal to get it in intime for Qt5.

As a user of Qt5, a programmer would simply use the QDaemonApplication class much like the presently do for the QCoreApplication or QApplication classes. Though it they will also be able to do some more things between instantiating the QDaemonApplication and calling its exec() function - check parameters, etc - potentially even fully by-passing the exec() if they chose (of course, then they won't get a daemonized application, and the main program won't run - but that can be useful in certain scenarios).

Behind QDaemonApplication is a series of APIs that provide the functionality. These APIs start off with some very basic Interface classes (QAbstractDaemon*) for the Interface (e.g. command-line, systemd, Win32 SCM, etc.), Communication between the Interface program and the daemonized program, and platform integration (e.g. Win32 SCM). This structure will allow us to easily switch between different components to do different tasks - e.g. Win32 SCM vs LaunchPad vs SysV vs systemd vs upstart - and communicate in different ways - e.g. Win32 SCM, File Pipe, Network Socket, etc.

Eventually as we add more, and support more, then the interfaces, etc will be chosen when Qt5 is built, and we'll try to keep sane defaults; however, presently I am simply trying to replicate the same level of functionality that is in the existing Qt4 QtService Add-on component.

So, if you're interested in looking at what's there, even though the code documentation is thus far pretty much non-existent, you can see it at BRM-Qt5-Service on Gitorious.

Qt5 & a major update for QtService - QDaemonApplication

2011-06-21T13:53:00.007-04:00

In May I proposed that QtService be integrated natively into Qt5 [1], and I offered to spearhead that task [6] and support Windows and Linux (Embedded and X11)[6]. In June I setup a branch of the Qt5 master repository[10] for supporting this task (I'll likely need to rebase it), and am working to get up to speed on using git (I have primarily used SVN), so I expect that getting going will be a little slow in that respect. (Sadly, a bit slower than anticipated. I am working on it.)

All that said, below is the summary from the Qt5-Feedback mailing list covering naming conversations, etc; and some additional stuff as I have contemplated that. The discussion has been very good thus far, but has made keeping track of via e-mail a little hard – so I am looking for a nice Wiki home for it all. I'll put it there once I find a nice home (probably at the Qt Dev Wikis somewhere) and get a chance to repost it here.

In the mean-time, please feel free to leave comments below.

Background:

QtService is presently an add-on provided by Trolltech/Nokia through the Qt Components system [1]. However, for a variety of reasons it is desirable by myself and others that it be a native part of Qt [1,3] whether as part of Qt Core or a module provided with Qt itself [1, 9]. In either case, it needs some TLC to bring it up to date as well as some improvements. To start, the existing QtService implementation is a C++ Template-based implementation[1,3]; the end result is that this prohibits use of signals/slots internally to the QtService code [1,3], prevents the ability to do a scheduled, orderly shutdown [1], and makes it hard to work with the command-line [3,5].

It has been proposed to make a new QtService implementation that makes use of C++ Abstract Interface classes instead [1,3]. In the process of doing so the ability to derive an interactive service will be removed per encouraging best practices and that it will not work on all platforms [1,3]. The new implementation should likely use a different name - e.g. QService, QDaemon, or QDaemonService - to be more consistent with existing names of parallel functionality - e.g. QCoreApplication, QApplication [5], and should address issues in the command-line [3,5], communication between controller and service [5], and add the ability to do controller shutdowns of the service [1].

Location:

I originally called for the work to be integrated into Qt Core.[11] However, after fleshing out further details we revealed several dependencies on modules – Qt SWF, Qt Network, and others. That is not to say that Qt SFW and this may not end up in the same module, but it will at least be in a separate module. For the time being, I am calling the new module QtService with the intention that Qt SFW be able to share it (more below).

Naming:

I originally proposed to use the name QDaemonService.[11] Some thought this was too long and it was proposed to just use QService.[14] However, it was pointed out the Qt SFW already uses this QService* namespace.[20,22] So, we will use the QDaemon* namespace instead to minimize confusion in the API.

Interface:

QDaemonApplication will be a formal object like QApplication and QCoreApplication, and should set up the application environment in a similar manner. That is, the command-line options provided should be available via calling QCoreApplication::arguments(). It should also have a function to tell the program whether it is the formal service or the controller so that developers can interact in both modes - thus being able to interact with the command-line as necessary.

In keeping with the naming conversions mentioned previously [5,11] the primary interface class with be QDaemonApplication. Thus the main application will look something like the following:


    #include 

    int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
        QDaemonApplication service(argc,argv);
        ...
        return service.exec();
    }

Back-End Communications:

In the QtService component, the service code used network connections under *nix and the Win32 Service Manager API on Windows for communication, which primarily relies on some IPC and command-line stuff to communicate. I think it is very important that each platform integrate something native to do the communications. To that end, I believe Qt SFW likely provides the best method of providing that functionality, and think we should collaborate between the two to utilize the IPC portion. Windows support will still require using the Win32 Service Manager API at least on the front end, and may in the back-end too so there may be some additional options of that nature. But primarily, I think we can rely on Qt SFW for IPC functionality – to provide integration for IPC, D-Bus, Shared Memory, etc – whatever is best for the platform and do so via a configurability during compile or (even better) at run-time. Otherwise, I fear we may reinvent the wheel that another portion of Qt has already finished – so why do it twice when the functionality is already there? (Yes, I realize Qt SFW was not available in Qt4 so readily. But from what I understand it will be in Qt5.)

This functionality will be hidden by the QDaemonApplication class. Developers utilizing these classes should not have to be concerned about the back-end communications – it should just work from their perspective.

Front-End Interfaces:

In the QtService component, the service code used the command-line as the sole front-end interface. However, QDaemon* should integrate with various systems, as well as keeping that simplistic command-line interface. So, while the command-line interface will be the first-out-of-the-gate supported front end, we should also add configuration support (likely build-time only) for supporting other mechanisms – e.g. systemd, zeroconf, upstart, bonjour, launchpad, etc. Once we have moved beyond supporting solely the command-line then native mechanisms will be set to be the defaults for each platform when such functionality is available (e.g. launchpad on Mac). In the case where there may be several different mechanisms (e.g. Linux – systemd, zeroconf, command-line, D-Bus, etc.) then we may select an appropriate default – e.g. D-Bus or command-line for Linux.

The primary idea here is that since there are so many different front-ends for driving service/daemon applications, it should be configurable with appropriate defaults selected. It should be as easy as possible to enable integration of new front-end interfaces for future expansion.

This functionality will be hidden by the QDaemonApplication class.

Developer Interaction:

As the application will daemonize itself in the QDaemonApplication object, developers will need to have an interface object with that class. To this extent, Developers will be required to create a class derived from an abstract interface class – QAbstractDaemonObject – which is then registered in some manner (function/signal/slot) with the primary QDaemonApplication object.

Class Architecture:

The QDaemon* namespace will consist of two public classes:

QDaemonApplication
QAbstractDaemonObject

And a number of internal classes to provide the various mechanisms for setting up the environment, interacting with the front-end APIs, etc.

The primary purpose of QAbstractDaemonObject will be to provide sufficient interfaces for developers to utilize both pre-demonization and post-daemonization. The QDaemonApplication object will do most of the work in bringing up the application, however, it will not daemonize the application until the exec() function is called – thus providing the developer time to interact with the pre-daemonized process. By allowing the developer to derive from this interface, we can also provide sufficient means to enable communications for the developer between the pre-daemonized and post-daemonized process – for custom communications (likely serializing to and deserializing from a QByteArray) via standardized signals/slots.

Instances:

Some platforms (e.g. Windows) only allow a single instance (primarily determined by the installation location and name of the service as registered with the Win32 Service Manager API) of a service to operate at a time. Other platforms could care less. To this degree, QDaemonApplication should contain the ability to differentiate between platforms and inform the developer if it is allowed, and if it is provide the developer with an easy means (boolean option) on whether to allow it or not.[14]

I think that's enough to get some discussion going.

[1] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-May/000246.html
[2] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-May/000247.html
[3] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-May/000253.html
[4] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-May/000256.html
[5] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-May/000259.html
[6] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-May/000262.html
[7] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-May/000266.html
[8] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-May/000267.html
[9] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-May/000264.html
[10] https://gitorious.org/~benjamenmeyer/qt/brm-qt5-service
[11] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000449.html
[12] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000450.html
[13] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000453.html
[14] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000454.html
[15] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000455.html
[16] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000457.html
[17] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000459.html
[18] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000460.html
[19] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000461.html
[20] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000463.html
[21] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000478.html
[22] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000500.html
[23] http://lists.qt.nokia.com/pipermail/qt5-feedback/2011-June/000525.html

Calling contributors...

2011-05-20T19:53:00.003-04:00

Recently Nokia announced the initial planning stages for Qt5, and looked to the community for ideas on how to improve Qt in a generally source-compatible way, meanwhile allowing extensions to be added and some things to be modified. All this, via the a mailing list - qt5 dash feedback at qt dot nokia dot com. There have been a number of great ideas that have come up - from additions to the QDateTime, time-zone support, enhancing the printing, integrating more from KDE, and lots more.

So why this blog? Well, I've been working with Qt professionally for just over 2 years now making a distributed network-based geometry measurement system for the railroad industry. The design uses a lot of service applications - which, use the QtService component add-on. Well, I'd very much like to see the QtService component become part of the Qt Core library in Qt5, but it needs a bit of love to get there.

Don't get me wrong - QtService is great. It works wonderfully, but it hasn't been updated in quite a while, and doesn't officially support Qt 4.6 or 4.7. Looking at Gitoroius, it's been put into the archives - i.e. its no longer going to be officially supported. Yet, I use this every day and I'm sure others do as well.

There are also a few other relatively minor problems with QtService:

1. It is template based. And this means that the base application from which you derive your own application can't use Qt's signals/slots to deliver the basic functionality. This is of greatest hindrance in the communications between the 'controller' portion of the application (which is provided for you) and your application. It also makes it very difficult to do things like delaying a service stop request (e.g. so you can unregister the application from a central server).

2. The command line is rather limited. That is, you get what they provide you and its very difficult (actually nearly impossible) to extend it to do other things - especially if those things are passing a parameter to your application (since there is NO signal you can send to it).

So, here I am now looking ahead to Qt5 and seeing that this nice component is not going to be supported. Meaning, I'm going to have to support it myself - and so is anyone else that wants to use it too, and I'm sure there are others out there.

Of course, since it is not a first-class citizen to the Qt Framework - and you have to explicitly pull it in and install it - then I'm sure that not everyone that really could make use of it does. So there are probably a lot more people out there that could make use of it and aren't simply because its too much work to install and use it, and you get those icky limitations that aren't very friendly to you either.

Fortunately, Qt is open source. And Nokia is moving Qt to open governance, especially with Qt5. This means that I, and everyone else, have the ability to contribute to Qt5 like never before. It also means if we can get a suitable new replacement for QtService written and on par with other parts of Qt then we stand a chance of having it become part of Qt itself - a first class citizen.

Well, time to wrap up my thoughts for this post...essentially, I have now joined gitorious (https://gitorious.org/~benjamenmeyer) and will be making a branch in the next week or so to star this work on. (Very exciting). Yes, I plan to "put my money where my mouth is" or so the old saying goes. I doubt my employer will let me do it on company time, but it'll be worth it if only so I don't have to maintain the other version in a lot less friendly and open manner. (Of course, that also means pushing my employer to use Qt5 when the time comes, which is quite a bit easier to do.)

So once I get back home, then I'll be finishing the setup of my gitorious account, and creating a branch, and possibly a team, for this effort. I very much do look forward to learning git in the process (I've been a staunch SVN user for years, but I mostly do work where centralized versioning makes sense; and community projects like this make better sense with a distributed versioning system.)

So, anyone else out there that is using QtService component, or would like to join in - please join us on the Qt5 Feedback mailing list mentioned above, and we'll get you plugged into the new work once I get it all setup.

And certainly look for more here as this endeavor continues. I'll certainly try to post more as it comes together.

Portable software...

2011-02-10T23:08:00.003-05:00

Over the last year and a half I've had the opportunity to work with Qt in software development, and I've enjoyed it greatly.

In a previous job, I looked at what it would take to port our software from being just on Microsoft Windows to also running on Linux, Mac, and various UNIX operating systems. In the course of that research I looked at several options: (i) Qt, (ii) Gtk, and (iii) WxWidget. The problem I ran into then was (a) Qt simply cost too much for the project (due to our budget), and was a security concern - not from the bug aspect but from the aspect that the target market was military and getting Qt certified for the environment would be hard - and a failure there could keep the project from certification as well. WxWidgets and Gtk both has the same security concerns; however, Gtk also had a licensing concern given its LGPL nature and our software was proprietary - Qt provided a great way around that if we could afford it, but we couldn't. So alas I was unable to get into Qt at that time, but as a result I was able to write a good portion of code for doing the same thing - writing my own platform abstraction API.

Now, of the three I loved the ideas and concepts introduced by Qt the best. Gtk, at least at that point, was still very much Message Mapping based from what I could tell. MFC was more than enough of that for me, and was just a pain - everything was determined at compile time and there was little flexibility. One of the great concepts that sold me on Qt was the Signals & Slots system that replaced the message mapping. WxWidgets supported both. Otherwise, all three seemed to be fairly equivalent at that time.

Now, before I go on let me state that I am not trying to convert anyone from Gtk or WxWidgets to Qt with this post. However, if you are using .NET or MFC or anything else (especially on Windows) then you need to start looking elsewhere for numerous reasons which I'll save for another post.

I had written applications in MFC and Win32 for a number of years - both GUI and services. They met the need at the time they were created but are no longer sufficient. .NET, on the other hand, does seem to be vastly updated by comparison but still has quite a few issues - at least patent wise if you want to have portable software.

Now, portable, multi-platform software is going to become ever increasingly important, and unless you are doing certain things that are very tied to a specific environment (e.g. extensions to Windows Explorer or KDE Plasma) then you can reach all your customers on all their platforms with a single code-base using the right tools. WxWidgets, Gtk, and Qt are some of these tools - and probably the best and most portable of all available. They are also Open Source. WxWidgets is completely public domain; while Gtk is solely LGPL. Qt, however, has several licenses - GPL, LGPL, and commercial licenses to choose from, so from a business perspective it makes the best sense - at least, as long as they continue the commercial license program; while from an Open Source perspective all three are really about equal in choice.

All that said, I must certainly say that the creators of Qt have done an excellent job and really gotten the platform right - one that is also continuously improving as well. Perfect just gets better.

So, now why do I say that?

Well, Qt is split into several modules, and they're working on making it more modular yet. Of course, you have to use the core (Qt-core) to use any of it, but the rest is pretty much optional - everything from networking to XML to services (daemons), and more - even in-program scripting. Additionally they also made it very easy to convert from Qt to Standard C++ and back - most all of their classes have functions to convert back and forth where overlapping occurs. The layers make sense and work; consistency abounds throughout the APIs.

So now with a single API you can reach from Linux, to Mac, to UNIX, to Windows; from Desktop to Server to embedded devices (tablets, netbooks, cell phones, specialty devices, etc.). There's not much you'll need a specialized, platform dependent code-base for - which basically comes down to Kernel-land software, and integration environments whose requirements prohibit being able to choose what API set you want to use (e.g. Windows Explorer ala TortoiseSVN). And you get all of it at native performance and looks, with bindings to most languages (e.g. Python, Java, Perl).

Businesses can certainly save themselves a lot of money by using APIs such as Qt, as well as preserve their businesses should anything happen to Microsoft or MS Windows - it's quite a gamble to put all your eggs in one basket, but yet so many software development houses do.

Fixing Health Care

2011-02-10T22:48:00.003-05:00

Despite what the Health Care Industry, Congress, and President Obama would like you to think there really is a simple way to fix health care.

President Obama and the Democrats in Congress want you to believe that all the changes in their recently passed, much despised, and soon to be at least partially repealed bill is required to fix health care. However, it really does nothing for you - and it only makes the debts higher, extending entitlements where none are needed.

The Republicans don't have much to offer, but are at least doing right by trying to remove the bill that no one really ever wanted to start with - well, except the Democrats in Congress and Obama since it made them look like they were doing something when they really weren't.

So what's the correct fix?

Insurance companies will be required to accept all properly licensed doctors. E.g. eliminate the whole "out-of-network" thing; it's really just a mess that is completely unnecessary.

Insurance companies will be required to pay what the doctors charge. They must not be allowed to pay out only a portion of the payment, and no refusals to pay.

Doctors will be required to charge only what is necessary - they may not inflate what is charged to the Insurance companies or to individuals.

Insurance companies need to remember what their business is - betting that people will not need the benefits they pay for. However, when people need those benefits they also need to pay out. Doctors are licensed by the American Medical Association, and as such need to be allowed to make the final call, possibly having a second opinion as well, but the AMA should lay out the rules. If people opt out of having insurance they they should have to pay the full amount themselves; but the insurance industry to not and should not depend on 100% participation to work. Simply put, people that are opting in are betting they will need while those opting out are betting they will not.

Doctors ought to be able to charge what they need to. If necessary the AMA or a Federal program can provide oversight to charges - to ensure they stay within reason (e.g. costs plus a small percentage of profit). But what is charged must be payed out in full without the doctors having to appeal or inflate prices just to get what they need to stay in business, and people shouldn't have to chose a doctor based on their insurance but based on the quality of care and services provided by the doctor. As a result, people not using insurance will be charged the same as the insurance companies - and doctor's would have no reason to discount it for them as a result.

So now we've solved the same program, far more effectively, and without intruding on State or Personal rights as granted by the U.S. Constitution.

All we have done, however, is forced Congress to break its ties with the Insurance industry, their associated PACs, etc. and actually represent the people.

The End of US Entitlements...

2011-01-24T14:03:00.004-05:00

It's time to put all US Federal Entitlement programs on the chopping block - and schedule their removal. The question is how?

To start with, Social Security has an easy, but long term, method to remove it. Take an age - say 30 (I fall in this group) or 15 or whatever - and say "You will never receive Social Security benefits". Hold to it (e.g. the age goes up every year following the group), and then close down the program as fewer people receive it. But also require that once it is shut down that all remaining funds are directly applied to the Federal Deficit if it still exists (highly likely) or should it no longer exist get paid back to everyone in the nation via a tax refund that is equally given out to everyone. (Of course you could also be generous and say just the those below a certain income level too.)

Note: If you're wondering why I chose those methods of paying it back to the people it is because it would be very hard to ensure that everyone gets paid back what they put in. So an equitable solution must be found. Of course, it also assumes there will still be money left in the Social Security coffers, which there may not be.

So there's Social Security - gone. One program down.

But what to do with everything else? What about Medicaid? Medicare? Welfare? All these programs are highly problematic to start with in how they are currently run. So let's just go ahead and shut them all down now, but we'll replace them with a single program designed to do what is at the core of those programs - helping out the needy and the poor. We'll call this program "PrimeCare". That said, here's what PrimeCare will do:

(i) if you're out of work, it'll help you get a job.
(ii) if you can't afford food, it'll help you get enough food every day - but you won't be able to go grocery shopping for it. You'll have to go to a PrimeCare facility. Transportation, if needed, will be provided as well; or in the alternative the food and supplies will be delivered to you.
(iii) if you need medical support, then PrimeCare will provide several insurance equivalent options.
(iv) if you're having trouble paying your bills, then PrimeCare will help you through debt management and bankruptcy if necessary, possibly even temporary low interest loans if necessary.

What's the purpose? To provide for the needs of those that can't otherwise afford it.

What do you need to qualify?

Well, mostly you'll have to be poor and unable to provide for yourself and your family. You'll also be required to give up spending on certain things, like CableTV, etc - things that you do not need to survive. You'll also be required to file the normal tax documents.

What's the goal?

To help them get to the point where they can pay their own way, and to provide for those that simply cannot (e.g. elderly, severely handicapped, etc.).

How do we pay for it?

If we were to take a lesson from the Bible, then we'd take an easy 10% out of everyone's paycheck. However, you would actually end up paying less in taxes than you do now - where you take out 7% for unemployment, 2-4% for medicare/medicaide, 7% for Social Security, and more. All those things go away and instead it all gets replaced by a solid 10% for everyone. If you want to make it progressive, then it could be:
(a) 0% up to poverty level (defined solely be the Bureau of Labor and Statistics)
(b) 0.05*personal income*M where 'm' ranges of whole numbers from 1 to 4 and is determined by a simple table of income levels (defined by IRS) in:
(b.1) '1' is up to the national average income of the previous year
(b.2) '2' is up to the twice the national average income of the previous year
(b.2) '3' is up to the four the national average income of the previous year
(b.2) '4' is for everyone else

That, of course, means removing the entitlements and reinventing them as aid for those that need it, providing a way and incentive to get out of the incentives. It also means that we must be willing to let those who are not willing to participate in the program, or to continuously do what is necessary to continue receiving aid, to exit the program without receiving aid even if they are unable to provide for themselves otherwise. Why are such incentives and requirements necessary? To help deter people from abusing the programs like our current programs are.

Now for the Medicaid, Medicare replacement to really work we also have to change the whole health insurance industry - but this post is already enough, so I'll write about that another time.

What to do about rising debt...

2010-02-15T18:42:00.003-05:00

As people are starting to worry about the US National Debt, what can be done?

Well, to start with:

1. Eliminate Medicare and Medicaide. If they must be kept, outsource to the lowest bidder with a government agency remaining the benefits approver. That is - combine them into one program, let a single agency decide what is approved/disapproved, but let the free market decide the cost. Stop spending $19 on an aspirin!

2. Eliminate Social Security.

Seriously. Yes, there are some people counting on it. But no one should. I certainly don't. Set an age where it is deemed that people have enough time to save up for their own retirement, probably around 40. Eliminate Social Security benefits for anyone under that age. (Yes, I'd be likely be under that age.) I don't count on getting the money back that I put in - don't give it back to me either. Just keep it and end the program. That's my contribution.

3. Start trimming

Get out of the business of managing by head count. Reduce the red-tape, eliminate the bureaucracy that has built up. Actually work to make government more efficient.

Yes, some parts of government need to grow. Others are too big and need to shrink. Yet others need to simply go away entirely (Social Security!).

4. Start paying down that debt without taking more on.

Balance the budget. Don't spend more then you bring in.

I'd say raise taxes a little to help pay it off - and the only thing that tax raise would be allowed for would be to pay it off - but that wouldn't help. Congress (and the Democrats especially) will just spend whatever they can.

There's probably more that can be done, but it has to start with getting rid of a lot of the social programs that are just plain utter crap, e.g. Social Security. Replace them with programs that teach people how to do it for themselves, and setup a smaller program for those that really can't - e.g. those on disability that can't work - and make it hard to get into, e.g. several doctors must sign off, reviewed every couple years, etc.

It'll do us all good.

But most importantly STOP THE SPENDING!

How we can overcome deflation...

2009-05-18T17:41:00.003-04:00

Thinking about some of my past posts - calling out for allowing deflation to occur - it occurred to me that I might have missed one aspect - loan contracts. So I did some more thinking and here's what I came up with...

Nearly ever economist will tell you that deflation is bad. Yet (as much as they want to ignore it) it is a part of a healthy economy. However, our economy structures loans in a bad way - one that always assumes inflation. This is most evident both in the Great Depression between 1929 and 1944 as well as in our present economic climate where the housing market literally forces people to give up their homes because the market value is lower than the mortgage and they either (a) have to sell for some reason in the immediate or near term, or (b) they simply cannot afford to pay the mortgage any longer due to financial troubles.

So the question becomes - how can we allow for deflation while at the same time not undermining our current system?

The solution may be simpler than one thinks - allow for deflation in the loan contracts through some relatively simple clauses:

i. All the contracts have interest rates. Apply the growth in the interest during inflationary periods.
ii. When in a deflationary period, the interest rate drops sufficiently to account for the difference in value due the deflation.
iii. Any lost inflation per #ii is not counted against the borrower by the lender.

Basically - if inflation is 5%, then the loan contract's interest rate applies. However, if deflation kicks in, then the 5% interest rate might either change or go away entirely. (While one might like it to drop below zero, it would probably be hard to get buy in from lenders if it did, unless it was a dramatic deflation. And by dramatic I mean something like 15% or greater deflation, not simply 1-2%.)

Now why does this work? Valuation of the currency. The lender is still receiving more value back than what they paid out. For example, if a lender lent out $100 at a 5% interest rate, that would net them $105 if paid. If deflation kicks in at %5, then the $100 is only worth $105.26 ( 100*100/95) just because of the deflation. If the borrower paid back the $100 without any interest, they would have still made their %5 back due to an increased value in the currency. However, if they continue to charge the 5%, then they would receive $110.53 (105*100/95) - e.g. 11%, thus making the loan unaffordable to the borrower as it ends up charging 6% more than it should have.

Some will say "well tough luck you took a gamble with the loan - that's life". True, you did take a gamble but so did the whole financial institution, based on a flawed assumption - that deflation will never exist. Why not involve deflation in the assumption - that it will exist because it does in real life - and adjust the gamble based on that?

This little change - of prorating the interest rates for deflation during the life of the loan - will allow deflation to occur in a safe and harmless manner for loan providers and borrowers.

Ultimately this benefits both lenders and borrowers. For lenders, it will mean less people having to walk away from a loan when deflation occurs. For borrowers, it means having a better financial stability to continue paying the bills in a deflationary period.

Lenders can start by including language for this in new loan contracts. Borrowers can start by pushing for this kind of language in new loan contracts. For both, it means less time spent in bankruptcy courts during those deflationary periods. And either Lenders could extend this to existing contracts, or the gov't could mandate it for all existing contracts.

Aside: My guess is that this would only really need to apply to large loans (e.g. card, houses, commercial, etc.) that are required for the economy to continue. Small loans (e.g. credit card, etc.) should probably be able to do without this, though likely would get it too just to make things fair overall.

Main driver in this recession?

2009-05-13T19:38:00.003-04:00

I don't know why, but for some reason people seem to think that the main driver in this recession is housing (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Stocks-fall-on-weak-retail-apf-15237010.html):

Meanwhile, the main driver of the recession -- the collapsing housing market -- has yet to turn around. RealtyTrac data said April's foreclosures were up 32 percent from a year ago, and up slightly from March. It was the second straight month that more than 340,000 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing.

The collapse of the housing market is really only one of the symptoms of the driver of this recession. What is the real main driver of this recession? DEBT.

How do we know that DEBT is the main driver? Because as credit tightens, one of the main factors is the debt-to-income ratio. If your income is not high enough in proportion to your debt (i.e. you have a high debt to low income), then the loan is denied. If, on the other hand, you have a low debt to high income then you are a safe bet for a loan, and they'll do whatever it takes to get you a loan. (There's a few other factors to, but that's a primary one.)

What can we do to stop the main driver? Start paying down the debt.

Seriously.

South Carolina's Governor Sanford has it right - pay down debt.

And Obama's continuing plan to try to spend our way out of this is only going to make it worse - far worse - as we'll have to take on yet more debt (as a nation) to pay back the interest on the existing debt. Instead of trying to push money out every where else, Obama, the Fed, the Treasury, and Congress should be looking at what they can do to pay down the Federal debt. Until they do, we're in for an eventual collapse - we might (and I stress might) get away this time, but you can't run from it forever, as many are now finding out in their personal and work lives.

Obama needs to get off the air...

2009-02-09T20:45:00.002-05:00

What's really funny right now, is that Obama is tripping over his words as he speaks to the American public. It's really embarrassing too. In answering questions, he's basically going back to only a couple points (e.g. can't just do tax cuts), and tripping over most everything else. What's more - it's very funny to watch him as he back-pedals over his stances on Iraq and Afganistan as he has to match up with reality.

That said, it's also very evident from the conference that he has no clue what caused the financial problem. He seems to be putting the blame squarely on the banks, though he did at least recognize the overspending of the American public - probably only because it was an answer directly related to the overspending of the American public.

True, the banks played a large role in the financial problem. But they also didn't cause people to overspend. They didn't cause people to put money no credit cards for stuff when they didn't have money to pay for it. They didn't cause people to need pay-day-loans to make rent. They also didn't cause businesses to go to pure JIT (just-in-time) manfacturing and move away from inventories to getting it as close to when the buyer buys and minimizing any overhead.

So what does this mean?

Well, since businesses are using a lot of JIT that their cuts due to loss of demand are more immediately felt across the various sectors. It also means that their increases will be more immediately felt across those same sectors when the time comes. It's really a double edged sword.

However, the bigger issue is that we are use to spending more than a dollar for every dollar we bring in. Businesses got use to it, and now that is no longer happening. Businesses and the world need to adjust. And we're not going to spend our way out of it.

In order to get out of this, then we have to create new, steady, long-term sources of jobs. New companies that will turn into long term companies. We need to get Wall Street to stop looking at only the 1 year, 2 year, or 5 year plans; and look at the 20, 30, 40, 50 year plans.

Tightening up capital will help. It will also help to loosen that capital where it needs to go - start-ups and SMB's. In other words, the only company's that should qualify for the major capital going out should be the ones that have less than 500 or 1000 employees, and (preferably) within their first 10 years of business. All others should be on a secondary or tertiary list to get what's left over. Why? Those are the majority of the companies that will create new jobs and spend money like no one else. They mostly have nothing to lose, and they are always the ones to drive us through booms. But we also need to do it in a way so as to prevent a bust when the money closes down.

Palin - Is she qualified?

2008-10-22T20:40:00.003-04:00

It's amazing how many people are claiming that Palin is not qualified to be President - never mind that she's the only one of the four (considering VP and President candidates equally) that has any executive office experience.

McCain has always been in Congress. So has Biden, and Obama's new on the scene. The job of any Congressmen (or Congresswoman) in either the Senate or the House of Representatives is two fold:

1) Legislative: Make Laws, Vote on Laws.
2) Do #1 with respect to the interest of the People of the state and district you represent.

Notice that there is not a single Executive responsibility in there. It is the responsibility of the Legislative branch - i.e. Congress - to make the laws. That's it. It falls to the Judiciary branch to ensure those laws pass the muster (or so to speak), and the Executive branch to enforce them. Each are pretty mutually exclusive - by design so that one group cannot dictate what happens and the people get represented. That's how its designed from the Constitution on out - though you'll never hear it from a Senator or Representative mind you. (They like to think they are more important than that.)

Now they the Legislature does get charge of the budget, which is one way they get to do their "checks & balances" thing. But ultimately, they have no control over the troops or any executive official. Not a single senator has as a Senator made an executive decision; nor can they. Same for Representatives.

However, that is not true when it comes to a State Governor. When a Territory decides they want to join the United States, they must first pass a State Constitution that is based on the Federal Constitution. As such, each state also has a House of Representatives and Senate in its Legislative Branch, a Judiciary branch, and an Executive Branch modeled after those of the Federal level. Guess who is in charge of the Executive Branch? The Governor. No one else.

Does the Governor control troops? To borrow a phrase from Sarah Palin - "You betcha". What troops? The State Militia, National Guard, and other troops that belong to the state's executive branch. Sure, the U.S. President can call on these troops for other needs - i.e. the President can take over the National Guard under certain circumstances such as a national emergency - but at the very least, they report to the Governor.

The Governor also has the ability to pardon crimes, signs the state laws, and oversees the groups that enforce those laws. Same as the President.

Would Sarah Palin be the first Governor to be the Vice President - or if something happened to McCain President? Most certainly not. Both former Presidents Reagan, and Clinton, and the current President were all formerly State Governors; as well as a fair number of former Presidents before them.

So is Sarah Palin qualified to be President? In one word - "Yes".
Is she more qualified than Obama? Most certainly.
Does McCain have to listen to her? Not in the least.

Am I voting for McCain or Obama? I'm not sure yet as I don't really like either one.

Oh, and the polls? Most pollsters know how to ask - or write questions that will be asked - to give an answer in a certain way. So don't ever take poll's at face value; each poll - Republican or Democrat - are aimed to get certain numbers. And they will show what the pollster wants it to show. In the case of Palin, they are probably trying to get the numbers to be against her, against McCain. After all, if they get enough polls to say she's a problem for him - then no matter how much she may actually help him, he won't be able to deny polls that they push through which will hurt, even if they are misleading. It's kind of like a snow ball effect - get enough mass and speed and it'll roll over anything in its path. That's the media for you, especially the pollsters.

What's this come down to? Look at her job. Look at her resume, and be your own judge. Don't necessarily believe what the media is telling you. Check the facts yourself. You don't need to take my word for it either - check for yourself.

D600 and Linux...

2008-10-15T23:30:00.003-04:00

So a while back I purchased my old work laptop - a Dell D600. I initially put Win2k on it b/c that is what I had and my wife wanted Windows and it was easy. Recently we got her a new laptop - a nice HP Core Duo system running Vista Ultimate. She's happy; and I've had a little bit of free time.

So I put Linux - specifically Gentoo 2008.0 - on the D600. It took a little work, but nothing I wasn't up to. The install was really smooth - and would have been smoother if I had followed the directions the first time around. (Fortunately Linux is designed well, so while I rebuilt it, I didn't have to go back to the CD and no wireless. So I was able to do more over the wireless!)

So now I'm running a very recent Linux Kernel - 2.6.25. The ATI Video card (ATI Mobility FireGL 9000 Rev 1/Radeon R250) is natively supported with the radeon driver. The wireless (Broadcom 4306, Rev 2) and wired (Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5702X rev 2) NICs are natively supported too. In fact, pretty much everything is natively supported - sound, etc.

The downside, though, is that the ATI drivers don't support the video card any more. However, the open source driver does just fine.

So why am I writing this? Well, mostly to note that the support is now native - at least with Gentoo. In setting up the system, I have noticed that a lot of information on the Net mentions adding patches and other stuff. And really, the only big thing I had to do with Gentoo was the following - and this is only stuff specific to the D600:

1. Make sure to set the 'Dell Laptop' stuff when compiling the Linux Kernel. It's pretty evident in the various menus used to configure the kernel (e.g. make menuconfig).

2. I had to install the Wireless Firmware - which required some special work due to licensing restrictions, which basically consisted of downloading the firmware from a website, extracting it to /lib/firmware, and running a small program (also from the website, though I think Gentoo might have it in Portage too) to align it with the kernel. After that, it was like running any other NIC - though it came up as wlanX instead of ethX - but that's okay.

3. Configuring X was a pain. Mostly because the ATI drivers don't work, and it's hard to know the monitor and video card information on your own. I'll have to post more on this another day - but suffice it to say that it's not too hard to get a well working system.

4. Sound was pretty easy. I've got a pure ALSA set-up; and once Alsa mixer was installed and I enabled the various volumes - especially the 'Headphones' and 'External Amplifier' I got sound without a problem. The "External Amplifier" drives the Internal Speakers. Kind of doesn't make sense - but works very well.

5. I installed a few extra things laptop related - namely 'gkrellm'. Sadly, I can't quite remember all of them. The other thing was enabling the 'dell' USE flag for 'sys-apps/hal'.

6. I use KDE, and there is some information out there regarding using the 'latitude' keyboard. As I said, I paid a little attention during the various build phases and made sure 'dell' and 'latitude' stuff was enabled. And once I set KDE to use the "Dell Latitude series laptop" keyboard layout (Control Center->Regional & Accessibility->Keyboard Layout->Keyboard model), it just worked! Volume Up/Down/Mute just worked!

Needless to say, the year of the Linux Desktop is certainly upon us when it has finally become extremely easy to configure a system and get near full usage out of it, and not necessarily with manufacturer support at that - by that I mean, a number of the parts companies haven't released full specs or helped much with drivers; yet, I still get nearly as much out of it as I do under Windows - likely more since Linux is more resource friendly than Windows is.

(WinXP SP-2 wasn't bad on the system when I had it a while back; but as far as Windows went, Win2k SP4 was the prime for it. Now, I'm sitting quite pretty with a nice KDE 3.5.9 desktop, doing things that Win2k - likely even WinXP - could barely dream of. In fact, soon I'll be sitting pretty doing things that even Vista has a hard time dreaming of once KDE 4.1 or so is more easily able to install under Gentoo - right now, Portage 2.1 is keeping it from getting installed since it needs Portage 2.2, which isn't quite ready yet. Hopefully soon.)

Well any how...the last few weeks have been a dream for me. Oh - and my Win2k installation? I'll likely only be booting it using Bochs or some other emulator that can use the hard drive partition! Or may be I'll finish cleaning it up (getting the photos off of it) and then convert it to more disk space for Linux...I certainly don't need Windows here any more!

Hope someone finds this useful. Enjoy!

US Energy Independence...

2008-10-07T22:58:00.002-04:00

What does it really mean for the U.S. to be "Energy Independent"?

Honestly? You hear it all the time right now with the presidential politics, in the debates, and everything else. But what does it really mean?

To start with - it means that the U.S. would be self-sufficient on its energy needs - as any country should be. That's all there is. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, how do we get there?

Well, that's the hard part. Primarily entirely due to nothing more than politics. Why? Because its politics that keeps us from it; and big spending lobbyists as well.

It's the lobbyists paying the politicians for their interests. For example, the U.S. Congress tried to raise the required gas mileage for the average vehicle to 35 miles per gallon; however, the bill never made it through, namely due to political interests - the big auto makers didn't want to do it as it would be "too costly" for them, so they poured lots of money against it. But it is that exact kind of politics that are keeping the U.S. from achieving energy independence. Why?

Because it keeps driving the need for certain kinds of energy sources higher. For example, the current standard is 25mpg - which typically yields about 400 miles per tank of gas. My Mazda 3s gets between 26 and 32 mpg on its 14g tank - thats between 364 miles and 448 mpg if I were to run it empty. Raising it to 35 mpg on the same vehicle would either raise minimum miles per tank to 490, or lower the size of the tank to about 11 gallons.

Now to put it into a little bit of perspective. Suppose you have to go 1000 miles. At 25 mpg, that's 40 gallons of gas. At 35 mpg, thats 28.57 gallons - or 70% of the fuel consumption. In today's dollar - at nearly $3.75 per gallon - it comes to a savings of $42.85. That also frees up 11.43 gallons for distribution elsewhere.

So what, then, would happen if we increase fuel efficiency to 150 miles per gallon? Or 200 miles per gallon? Or more? We do have the technology; but the auto-makers choose to give us all kinds of things we don't need - like TV's - instead of giving us savings that would really help us.

So how else do we get there?

The other big side of why politics gets in the way of energy independence is that there is a lot of political upheaval over building new fuel refinery plants, or even nuclear facilities.

Why are these important? New refinery plants means the ability to spread the fuel we have further at lower cost. Nuclear energy has the highest return available in terms of fuel to power ratios. Nothing comes close. The only argument against Nuclear is the relatively small amount of waste afterwards. And in terms of safety history, nuclear is by far the safest; with less injuries than anything else. And every instance of a nuclear plant failing - all two or three of them - containment has occurred. (Yes, even Chernoble was no where near what it could have been; and research already shows that after only about 20 years it is already coming back to levels that are safe enough to live in!)

** It doesn't mean we have a nuclear plant in everyone's back yard though! **

Don't get me wrong - we need a very diverse energy plan that includes solar, wind, hydro, and many other forms of energy harvesting. But bang-for-buck, nuclear is the cheapest and cleanest we can get.

Again, to put it in perspective - we can reply "dirty" fuel sources such as coal that have limited resources, which are costly to recover and transport, with other sources of power such as nuclear that can do far better. And when the next safer/cleaner thing comes along we can upgrade the power plants to that too.

BUT that does nothing for the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that traverse the roadways and railways all over the world, over 90% of which use some form of petrol - which is even more limited in quantity than coal.

There really is only one solution for the vehicular side - converting everything to pure electric. The reality, though, is that the conversion is not an overnight process. Most are ranting now about the battery situation - however, Porsche had a 100% electric vehicle around 1915, and companies such as Tesla Motors are figuring out ways around the battery situation. (BTW, Tesla has a really neat method of charging/discharging batteries by treating them like a big network of small batteries.) But should we toss the baby with the bath water, or so to speak?

Absolutely not. What it means is that we need a hybrid vehicle to get there. Toyota brought us the Prius, and several other companies have brought similar vehicles. But they all do it wrong by building two system in-line, instead of building one system that supports the other and for that there is only one real solution - a full electric system that can be supplemented by an alternative energy source.

Now why did I say "alternative energy source" instead of saying a "gasoline engine"? So as not to limit the possibilities. That alternative source will likely be a small gasoline engine - and if we do it right we could recharge the batteries while the vehicle is moving and then shut it off again - but it must also include a way to draw energy from the greater power grid - i.e. a plug-in hybrid.

Sadly, we'll have to wait until at least 2010 for such a vehicle to be done right . The EPA killed it before; hopefully they won't do it again. (Why? Because it meant they couldn't get the test results to be consistent since it could be plugged in, thus the vehicle might have gotten 50mpg one time, and never used a gallon another time.)

Why is this important? Because until it is provided, we cannot centralize our energy generation systems. Until we can plug-in the vehicles there will be no such thing as energy independence. Why? Because we'll still need oil and petrol from other nations in ever growing quantities than the U.S. could ever itself produce.

Of course, once they start selling it'll take about 20 years to replace the vehicles on the road. Why? It'll take about 10 to 15 years to trickle down once it reaches a generally accepted price range, and it'll probably take about 5 years to reach that once it hits market.

But there is hope for making it happen sooner, but only if someone can come up with an economical way to convert existing vehicles to either a pure electric system or a hybrid. Needless to say it can be done - there are a lot of enthusiasts our there doing it right now - but it usually is a very custom job, namely since no one is doing it on large scale. What is needed is someone to pick it up, create a replacement engine that will suite most vehicles and give decent performance (not everyone needs a sports car), and the glue-parts (namely the connections to the transmission) for most vehicles and deliver it at a cost that is not much more than replacing a standard engine.

Why the cost limit? To make it affordable, and that would probably come at about the same point the car companies are able to do it for their current selections - about 5 years out - since it would use much of the same kinds of technology.

But it can't just stop at vehicles. Systems that can be maintained by solar energy such as traffic lights or school zone lights should be. Systems that can be shut off when not needed should be.

And don't forget about "Daylight Savings Time" - it should just be eradicated. It doesn't save us anything (as the recent study of the state of Indiana showed when they converted to it in 2007), and does not make an impact on energy usage - the U.S. is a 24/7 economy. Manufacturing (which is what DST was all about) happens regardless of the clock. If it's not heated, it's cooled (which is more likely nowadays anyway) and that happens regardless of the time of year. People tend to just leave their air conditioner or heaters on; which in the end just uses more fuel though it may save a few dollars a month today.

Then of course there is the big farce that is ethanol. The only reason you hear anything about ethanol is again politics - the farming lobbyists which spend more money on the U.S. Congress than anyone in the world. So despite the fact that 1 gallon of pure gasoline produces more energy than 1 gallon of gasoline mixed with ethanol, which produces more energy than 1 gallon of pure ethanol, we're still force feeding ethanol production through the system - even legally requiring it - despite the fact that it is a leech on the entire fuel system that only drives demand for fuel higher because the vehicle that was getting 400 miles per tank is now getting 200 or 300 mile per tank just because of ethanol. (Of course there are also the other side-effects such as how much more corrosive ethanol is; the fact that it burns hotter and makes engines deteriorate faster, and more.)

Ultimately, there's a lot there. And it will take a long time to do. But it'll only take longer unless we get started on the road to it today. Some are starting. Energy independence - energy self-sufficiency - will be a long and hard road; but it will be more than worth it to get there.

Now if we can only get the politicians in line with the interests of the people instead of the lobbyists...

P.S. Sorry if I seemingly got a little off-topic. Everything there is really on-topic. Hopefully I made it all relate in a way that made sense. Comments, discussion welcome as always.

Update...

2008-08-12T10:42:00.002-04:00

Well...it's been quite a while and much has gone on. This, however, is just a quick update on me and why the blog has been so empty as of the last few months. It's really rather simple - I've changed jobs and moved, and in the midst of it all I haven't really had any time to write more blog entries. Hopefully that will change soon. In the mean time, enjoy!

Yahoo and Microsoft??? Microsoft Debt?

2008-02-05T14:40:00.000-05:00

So Microsoft has offered a bid to Yahoo! shareholders to buy out the Yahoo! common stock - or something of that nature - to the tune of $44.6 billion. Well...first, as a Yahoo! customers I do hope that this DOES NOT go through and that at the very least that the FTC blocks such a buy out from Microsoft. Ok...now that we have my opinion aside, let's look at the real deal...

Just for your information, my goal here is to get you to think about the situation.

Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo. Why? I don't know. Mini-Microsoft reported the following in his blog:

I'm surprised yet not surprised. Internally, a number of us had heard reasons from Steve Ballmer why a Yahoo! acquisition didn't make sense.

Again, I don't know why Microsoft would be going for it - especially if Ballmer has reasons that it doesn't make sense! Well...I guess it makes sense in that it would (a) eliminate a search competitor, (b) eliminate a video competitor, and (c) gain them some part of Google - Yahoo! has an investment in Google, so this would make that investment Microsoft's.

Hmm....that would be an interesting twist - buy Yahoo! so that it could then take care of its number one competitor (who isn't officially trying to compete with Microsoft) - Google. Hmm...now that might be a reason. One that is worth $44.6 Billion? I don't know.

But let's also consider this. Microsoft does not have enough cash available to actually make the purchase, which means that Microsoft would have to for the first time ever go into debt in order to make the purchase. Anyone know why Microsoft has never carried debt? Because Bill Gates wanted it that way. From the start, Bill Gates ensured that Microsoft had enough cash on-hand to run 2 years without a single sale of any product. That's quite a feat, but it's also the key to Microsoft's success. Why? They could do what they wanted and didn't have to worry about what investors might tell them to do. They didn't have to worry about bankruptcy or any of those other matters. And furthermore, they didn't have to worry about anyone trying to buy them out.

What's that? Buy out Microsoft? When a company isn't doing well financially and it has published stock, then someone might come around and try to buy that stock at an above value price (e.g. the sock is worth $5 so they offer $7) in the hopes to lure enough people to gain a controlling share and then be able to direct the company. This is usually referred to as a Hostile Takeover. Microsoft has never had to worry about anyone doing that because they have always been in good financial conditions.

Well...either Yahoo! has royally pissed off Microsoft, or they have enough financial trouble that they are ripe for such a buy-out and Microsoft is growing impatient with waiting out the talks they have been in with Yahoo! for some time on the subject. No - I don't know why.

But why is Microsoft all of a sudden loosing their patience? Why are they all of sudden willing to go into debt to finance this deal?

To be short, Microsoft is at a big cross-roads right now. Not only are they losing their big leader and founder - Bill Gates, who is retiring to pursue philanthropy with his wife - but they are also facing the stiffest competition they've had in years - probably since the early to mid-1990's - and from Google (you know that "big" search company that Yahoo! owns a share of). Additionally, Microsoft is about to lose everything - or rather, we'll learn just how much Microsoft will lose by the end of this month, and it has everything to do with OOXML.

What is OOXML?
It's Microsoft new formats for its Office Productivity programs, namely Excel, Word, and Powerpoint, and its the default/primary format used by Office 2007. You need special plug-ins for Office 2003 to be able to read it too. But it's more than that. Office 2007's format is a super-set to OOXML, and will always be so. OOXML is just the part of that file format the Microsoft submitted to ECMA for approval as an industry standard, and which has been submitted to ISO to become an international standard for the world. Problem is that even with Microsoft stuffing the ballots, they still lost the initial vote in the fall of 2007. In February 2008 (this month!) there will be a ballot resolution meeting (BRM), and we can expect Microsoft to be trying to stuff that in its favor to. You can find more about that from Bob Sutor who does a great job in covering the topic.

Why is OOXML so important to Microsoft?
Needless to say, Microsoft has a lot at stake with OOXML. If they are unable to get OOXML approved by ISO as a standard (which on technical merit it should not be approved), then the Office Document Format standard will go to Microsoft's biggest Office Productivity competitors, who all back the OpenDocument Format (ODF), which is already an ISO standard. ODF achieved its ISO status by going through the entire, lengthy process; where as Microsoft is trying to ram OOXML through the process as fast as possible - regardless of the cost either to itself or of ISO's reputation. But that's business as usual for Microsoft.

Furthermore, the OOXML spec is centered around Microsoft technologies and issues. For example, there are/were several implementations for how to format a Date-Time value - they were all focused around how Microsoft Windows performs date-time functions, and the bugs associated therein. Another example is the custom drawing specifications used. The spec is riddled with it, and nearly all of them are not complete in their descriptions. As a result, the OOXML spec is over 6,000 pages long, and re-implements a lot of things that ISO has already created a spec for (e.g. MathML) while tying those same things to Windows.

Thus for Microsoft, to lose OOXML is to lose Microsoft Office is to lose Microsoft Windows.

Microsoft Financials
As I stated earlier, Microsoft has never had debt - thanks to Bill Gates. And thus far they haven't needed to as their Windows and Office products yield a billion dollars in profit a month last I heard). And AFAIK, most other products by Microsoft either do not yield any profit whatsoever, or do not yield a lot of profit. So what would it mean for Microsoft to lose Office or Windows? It would mean that the company would need to raise money to continue its business.

What's that Microsoft's business relies on its monopoly status? Yep - that's right. If Microsoft loses Windows or Office (or worse yet - both) then its lifespan will be limited thereafter since it would have to turn the other businesses into things that are a lot more profitable than they are

However, that has been how Microsoft has always been. So what's changing? Bill Gates is retiring. That's the big change. But what does that mean?

Bill Gates retires from Microsoft
One of the biggest challenges a company can face is the retiring of its lead executive, and its founders. In the case of Microsoft that big challenge comes with the retirement of Bill Gates.

We've seen what this can do to a company every time Apple ousts Steve Jobs. What happens? The company tanks after a few years and then ends up bringing back Jobs to save the day. Fortunately for Apple Steve really cares about the company and thus comes back. Apples biggest challenge, therefore, will be when Steve dies and they can't bring him back. That very well may be the end of Apple. (Sad, but we'll see when it happens. Hopefully that won't be for a long time, but it is inevitable.)

Microsoft hasn't had to face that situation yet. Bill Gates has pretty much been in charge since day one. Only in the last 18 months or so has he been taking a more secondary role - but even then, he's still very much been in charge - just differently. Fortunately, if Microsoft has problems it might be able to bring Gates back since he is only retiring and won't be dead.

However, at least from the recent discussions about Microsoft buying Yahoo! the new management feels debt is okay. But can Microsoft risk the debt? Think about it. I think not.

Suppose the BRM goes in Microsoft's favor - then they can rely on the continence of their monopoly on Office Productivity and Windows and they'll be okay. They'll be around in 50 years.

But suppose the BRM doesn't go well for Microsoft, and OOXML is rejected by ISO. It'd only be a matter of time before people start seeking other, less expensive Office Productivity software - and likely only a little longer than that before a greater switch from Windows to other platforms such as Linux or Mac OS X - which are already starting to eat a little (not much) into Microsoft's market share. At which point, they lose the income, and possibly the company there after.

If Microsoft does not take on the debt to buy Yahoo!, then they'll have enough money to perhaps go a few years without sales and then release a new, more competitive product that does support ODF and perhaps actually becomes something people want - instead of using because it's just what everyone else uses and/or they don't have a choice.

But IF Microsoft does take on the debt, then they won't necessarily have the money to do so. Their current AA or AAA rating will quickly sink. All of a sudden those bonds would be worthless.

So the question comes to this - can anyone really afford to buy those bonds if Microsoft were to issue them? Perhaps if you have a lot of money and don't care. But if you really do care about actually getting that money back with at least the inflation rate, then no, I don't think you can really afford those bonds - at least not without knowing the outcome of the BRM and whether OOXML becomes an ISO standard. But we won't know that result until May or June, if I understand things right, as there is a 30 or 60 day period after the BRM for countries to decide what they are going to do - whether they're going to change their votes or not. If the votes stand with no changes, then OOXML will fail to gain ISO support. It will actually take quite a bit of change for Microsoft to get OOXML approved, but they have a chance - I think they need like 7 to 9 votes to change from 'no' to 'yes', and that's only if no one changes from an 'abstain' or 'yes' to 'no', in which case they may need more yet.

Can Microsoft really afford to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion? I don't think so at least as OOXMl currently stands with ISO. We'll know better after that issue is resolved.

No - I don't have any inside information with Microsoft. I don't know what they're thinking. This is just my understanding of the events as they are unfolding, and my understanding of business and finances. In no way am I an expert in these fields, but hopefully I've caused you to think a bit about the topics (that was my goal) - whether you are an expert or not.

Economics...

2008-01-27T21:44:00.000-05:00

Wow...it's been a while since I've written anything here. So what has brought me out of the woodworks? The economy.

There are many out there that are talking about the economy, and the idea of a recession, and how this will all be "bad" for the economy. I beg to differ.

According to an article in the "Tribune-Review", reprinted from the Chicago Tribune, entitled "Housing mess turns uglier than it needs to" (by Gail MarksJarvis) , this is the "worst housing slump since World War II". So that's 50+ years of inflating housing prices, inflating the dollar, and more - which really only goes to what I am going to say that much more...

The U.S. Economy is in a big need for a re-adjustment. The prices of goods are too high, and need a correction with respect to the dollar. True, the perceived value of the dollar will remain about the same, but it will strengthen the dollar in the process. This can be done through a forced correction - e.g. a restatement where X dollars is declared to now to Y dollars. The other option, is a prolonged recession or a depression.

What we are seeing in the housing market at present is a recession. People are not buying. Why? It's not simply recent issues with banks and brokers, mortgages, etc - though that is certainly a big factor. It's also the prices - housing prices, gas/oil, goods, etc. It's also a national debt issue.

Since the 1980's the nation has come to rely on debt - not just as a nation, but also for each individuals. While I don't have a reference, I have recently heard that the average personal debt is around $10-12 thousand. That's $10-12 thousand gaining anywhere from 3% to 25% (on average) interest per year. Figuring it at $10k, and 8%, that's $800/year in interest alone for just paying the minimum amount due; fail that and you have a fees add up pretty quickly. Assuming that that is the average over the year, that's $66.67/month in interest alone - plus the $833.34 monthly payment - yielding a total $900.01 monthly payment.

So, let' assume an average income of $40k - which, figuring a 25% tax rate, leaves $30k for use - or $2500 per month. After we subtract out the $900.01 payment that leaves $1599.99 for use. Take out the rent/mortgage, bills, food, gas, etc. and there would be nearly nothing left over at the end of the month to either save or buy extras with (e.g. PS3, computers, music, movies, etc.). What results is either people stall their spending or people go into greater debt. If people are financially wise, then they would first eliminate the debt and then start spending again - but only within their income.

Unfortunately, that is not so easy. Why? As a nation, we have come to be a "having it now" group. We simply can't wait for things. So give people money, and they'll likely spend themselves into more debt. Thus, the President & Congress's proposal to give an early 2009 tax refund ($1200/household, plus $300/child; for those up to a certain income level at which it starts going down) will work to get people spending because (like it or not) the majority will simply spend it. While it will work temporarily, it will not work in the long run. You'll have to keep doing it every year, and every year give a greater amount to keep up its effects. What the economy needs in the long run is for the average citizen to lower their personal debt, for the nation as a whole to lower personal debt, and for the nation to decrease the national debt as well.

Sadly though, the solution only goes back to the same solution as doing a natural occurring (non-forced by gov't) price fix - a prolonged recession, or a depression.

How would these help? First, they would put the country at a whole under an economic hardship. For many, it will mean bankruptcy as they will lose their jobs and succumb to the debt they built up. It'll also mean the rich will get yet richer as they will be the ones to more easily survive without much problem, though it will also bankrupt the "rich" - those who pretend to be rich but in reality are extremely in debt; their life style makes them out to be billionaires, but their income is negative - even if they are making a six-figure income.

This would also mean a lot of "IP" companies (e.g. patent trolls, etc.) will go under. The result will be that commercial software will see very hard times, and there will be a lot more open source products as numerous programmers who just love to program go without work and find projects to work on.

It will also likely mean the dollar will crash. But, in the end, the economy will become stronger for it.

But this is really nothing new. Years go - before we had the centralized Federal Bank, and even during its early years - the economy was very cyclical and adjusted itself all the time. Since the Federal Bank matured, economists have come to believe that we can maintain the cyclical-ness, but do so in an overall positive way. (See any Econ. 101 class.) What this means is that the depressions/recessions will be lessened so that the economy continues growing. This also leads directly to inflation, which results directly from the difference between the dip of the depression and the peak of the grown. (I.e. if it grows by 5 points but only recesses by 3, then there is a 2 point inflation going into the next cycle.) However, in reality, inflation can only be maintained for so long before it must be corrected.

It's the simple natural law - what goes up must come down. What inflates must deflate. Eventually the bubble will burst, and the balloon will be popped - you can only patch it for so long before it becomes just one bigset of patches that will give way and explode.

So, either you can take the bigger effects up front - such as we use to have - or you can take long periods of growth followed by extremely big depressions. Either way, the result will be the same, and life WILL go on.

Personally, I'd rather take the shorter cycles. Life would be a lot easier that way and we'd all learn faster that simple principles of living with less debt as the consequences will be more evident faster, and the dollar will be stronger in the end. It also means things will be a lot cheaper - at least by the dollar figure, and the term "a million dollars" will be something really significant again.

The problem with hybrids...

2007-11-13T14:59:00.000-05:00

Some are trying to revolutionize the trucking industry with hybrids. However, this Reuter's report talks about the problems from the trucking industry.

To quote:

Added weight from a second powertrain can limit a trucker's haul -- increasing per ton transport costs

That's exactly the problem with today's hybrids - from the Toyota Prius to the trucks mentioned in this article. Why? There is absolutely no reason for having TWO drive trains.

The solution? I theorized about this in 7th grade for a science fair project (and still pretty sure it could have been done even then), and have written about it recently on this blog too - a single electric drive power train that is driven entirely by battery power; the batteries can then be recharged either through plug-in, or through a small generator that kicks in only long enough to recharge the batteries while the vehicle is in full use.

In fact, that should be even more feasible now than it was in 1994 since we have all these technologies to reclaim energy from braking and other activities and divert that power into the batteries.

Sadly, it looks like the first such vehicle will be GM's Volt due to be released in 2010.

Unfortunately, for the trucking industry - you have a lot more rugged condition that the vehicles need to stand up to - mostly for construction site conditions and any other off-road condition. (They face the same basic problem that off-roaders face too.) This makes it harder for the electrical drive train, which has to be protected even more, especially against water. I personally think that at least the vehicles that need these kinds of ruggedness will be the last to go electric. Semis, and all other road vehicles that only need normal road conditions will be there pretty shortly, in my opinion. (That is only based on my limited knowledge of the mechanics behind it; not on any actual industry info. But it should be what happens.)

[Edit: In another story, Porsche had one of these "serial hybrids" in 1901. So it was definitely achievable in 1994.]

Home sales and the economy...

2007-11-09T16:52:00.000-05:00

So apparently the builder's don't get it, or at least that is the report from an article in the NYTimes. They realize there some issues, but they're blaming the press on the duration of it. Well...they need to get a grip on reality because here are the reasons for it:

1) The builders built too many houses.
2) The builders built too many expensive houses.
3) Buyers (in certain regions - e.g. Northern Virginia, Atlanta, California, etc.) have pushed the housing prices up and up and up, and created a bubble that is now deflating.
4) Mortgage lenders offer bad loans and qualified buyers they shouldn't have.
5) Some cities (e.g. Columbus, OH) decided to clean-up downtown and move the poor folk out by helping them get qualified for those bad loans, thus making them someone else's problem.
6) Some areas(e.g. Loudoun County, VA) decided to set building codes that pushed property values up, primarily to preserve their way of life - spacious housing.
7) The average buyer can no longer afford to buy a house, condo, townhouse, or even an apartment. So young families are in trouble of finding places to live where the parent(s) have a decent commute (1/2 hour or less) to work with a job(s) that pays well enough to support the family.
8) Established households can't afford to buy a new house where they live. (Several years ago I had one high up general manager where I work say that he couldn't afford to buy his own house if he had to.)

And the list goes on. However, the Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, seems to get it:

Mr. Bernanke offered a rocky outlook for the months ahead. He said the battered housing market had yet to hit bottom, that delinquencies and foreclosures were likely to rise and that the depression in home-building was “likely to intensify.” He predicted that personal spending would advance more slowly, because consumers were less confident and because of tighter credit conditions.

- Quote from this NY Times article.

Yes, the depression on housing is going to intensify - prices have to come down to where normal people can afford to buy a house - and by normal I mean people with a $50k a year salary that have little to no debt, save may be college debt, with a good credit score. When that happens, then expect the housing market to turn around, no sooner.

So what can the builders do to help? Tear down the multi-hundred-thousand dollar homes they've been building, cut the lots to a quarter acre - even a half acre - and then put up a more reasonable homestead that most people can afford. Make $300k the top end, and $120k the bottom end. Then work with lenders to provide good, solid loans that are not going to destroy people's credit (e.g. variable rate interest loans, interest only loans, etc.). And inform buyers that lenders will work with them to keep them from foreclosure. People will buy - but you have to make it a safe market to do so.

Right now, the market is not safe. Answer the big question - if I sell in 5 years (a lot of people do), then could I get my money out of it at the very least? Right now, the answer is a very flat, absolute, and resounding NO. Turn it into a 'yes' and people will buy. (My wife and I did not recently buy for that very reason; we opted to continue renting - why? we didn't know where we'd be in 5 years and might need to move out of state, so it was too risky for us to buy at present.)

The World gets it, when will the US?

2007-10-31T10:06:00.000-04:00

Heise On-line reports that the German Foreign Office hosted a conference for international users of the OpenDocument Format (ODF), to which they "invited about 150 users and political observers".

While one would expect a conference on ODF to be pro-ODF, which this conference certainly sounds to have been, it also showed that the international community, the world, gets what ODF has to offer that Microsoft - in both its Doc and its OOXML formats - cannot: standardization, compatibility, freedom to choose the software of their choice while having compatibility.

A few good quotes:

Mr. Yadava declared ODF to be a way out of the current file format chaos that went hand-in-hand with a high risk of data loss.

"We no longer accept Word documents," Yatindra Singh, a judge at the High Court in Allahabad, declared. These were not easy to convert into ODF-compatible files, he stated.

Office Open XML (OOXML), Microsoft's thwarted candidate for a second open ISO document standard would, in the opinion of Mr. Schießl, not be suitable for comparable tasks because of its complexity.

What was called for was competition between implementations of ODF, not competition between file formats, he stated. Everything else would only make future migrations more difficult.

Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called ODF "a completely open and ISO-standardized format." It was thus an "excellent basis" for "a free exchange of knowledge and information in a time of globalization," he declared. This in turn was a necessary ingredient of the knowledge society, he averred.

So, when will the U.S. finally learn and get with it? From the sounds of it, the U.S. will isolate itself if it stays Microsoft's path. Certainly not the first time that has happened, but it would be a devastating blow to the U.S. economically if it does. The U.S. , economically, is largely dependent on the global markets, which are going in support of ODF and ISO standardization. Unless the U.S. follows suit, it will be in a difficult position to compete - or for that matter, to even play the game.

Economy, Economics, and Housing...

2007-09-10T20:26:00.001-04:00

My original idea for the title of this piece was "Why my wife & I decided not to buy", which I would have made a sub-title if Blogger.com enabled me to do so. I also touch on a few other things in this post too. So enjoy.

The New York Times had an article recently about the declining job growth and that people are fearing there is a possible recession coming. The article states that the greatest number of jobs lost were in the house building sector of the economy, though it is likely that more job losses are on the way - or have already happened, as the report the article was talking about was for a short time period before some of the layoffs would have all been accrued. Any how...if you want to know more of what the article was about, then I would really highly recommend reading the article.

(Sadly, if you are reading this past 2 weeks from the publish date of the article, then you will either need to look it up in the library, or pay them a small fee. Otherwise, you might need a free account. Any ways...)

I really wanted to address what the problem is with the housing sector from the point of a customer. (Sorry, no consumer language here. I'm a customer!) And before I begin on that, just let me say that I am not an economist or anything of that nature - I have not studied the economy (just had the college and high school econ classes) nor studied the housing sector. This is just my own insight based on my own observations and ideas about financing. So please remember that, and take what I say with a grain of salt. And I recommend that you take this to a real economist, financial adviser, etc. before making any kind of decision on it.

That said...

My wife and I use to live in Fairfax County, VA - one of the most expensive places to live in the U.S. (Not as expensive as Manhattan, but on par with Northern New Jersey and Silicon Valley, L.A. area, etc.) Why did we move? Because we couldn't afford to live there - and it wasn't that I wasn't making good money - I was. However, it was impossible for us to be able to buy a house, or even a townhouse. (Houses were, at that time, starting at $500,000, and for a traditional mortgage that means a $25,000 to $50,000 dollar down payment. Townhouses were starting to get up to starting around $200,000 to $300,000.) So, when the company I am working for was looking to set up a facility in a cheaper area (Cambria County, PA), we opted to be moved there.

So we got there, and decided we would rent someplace for a while while we got use to the area, and found out where my wife (a CPA-in-the-making) would be working. Several months after she got her job, we decided we would start looking for a house to buy - yes buy - with a target of closing & moving in this fall. (We still needed to save some money for the down payment.) So we started looking and did find a couple places that interested us, but then we had to consider the economy...

We don't know how long we're going to be where we are now, and presently I have a 10 minute commute (20 minutes round trip), and she has a 2 hour commute (4 hours round trip) - both times are assuming good weather and traffic of course. So we were looking to even out our commutes...ok, but then there's the economy...

So...what were our considerations on the economy?

Well, first back in June and July there were the reports about the bad mortgage practices by a number of the mortgage companies. I was already a bit concerned by these practices as I knew we could get a loan with nothing down, and even be able to avoid closing costs through the various packages, but...I wasn't interested in that, and I think that those kinds of loans are rather foolish to start with. Also, one shouldn't forget that a lot of those loans also have conditions for the buyer (e.g. when you do sell, you can only have X% profit), so they weren't really attractive to start with.

We went and got pre-approval letters from some banks and did some research and stuff and got things in order before we went to a realtor, which we later learned was smart to do - but don't get too many pre-approvals - as realtors look for that before they will do serious business with you.

So we were protected from that somewhat to start with at least for the mortgage loans we would have gotten...BUT...

Even before this the area where we were looking was a slow moving market, and as I said earlier we did not know how long we would be in this area. What does that mean? Well, we're willing to commit to a 5 year time frame, but not much longer than that. (And you don't really want to buy a house and then within 3 years sell it and move on...that's not really good credit wise, etc.)

The problem then became that with the problems in the mortgage sector (e.g. foreclosures, etc.) and the need for the option to be able to resell in 5 years, the area just was not attractive for a home purchase would have a harder time selling in 5 years than it was before (which may have already been pushing it a little to start with).

Thus, we have decided to wait on a home purchase once again. And no, the Fed lowering the rates will not change that. We're young (in our mid-twenties), and we need flexibility. A market that is (a) over-priced, like it is down in Northern Virginia, or (b) to slow to resell, like it is in Pennsylvania, is just not attractive.

Yes, I do realize that we are adding to the problem some by not buying. But we also don't have the ability to take on the loss of flexibility within the time frame that we want.

And before I go - the issue in Northern Virginia is a key one, and one that is probably affecting a lot more places and Northern Virginia is just an extreme. But the basic problem is that the housing is way overpriced, and it getting to the point where people that have good jobs just cannot afford to even get into the market. If a good down payment (10%) is a year's salary, then it is just realistically unaffordable. This kind of thing will eventually lead to a crash of the market - whether localized to areas like Northern Virginia, or more expansively across the nation.

Northern Virginia got this way due to the boom of the 1990's, where housing prices in the late 1990's jumped highly and places would be on the market a matter of hours. (People would literally go and offer $10k, $20k, $50k more upon arriving just to get.) The result is an overpriced, unaffordable market. After graduating and getting work with a decent salary, I had to look at housing - renting something - and came across another problem with that market. In order to get something that was affordable ($700 to $1000 per month), I would have had to be in a government subsidized apartment complex and the most I could make was $42,000. (I made more.) So I didn't qualify; the only places I could get in were at least $1300 per month, and climbed quickly to $1700 per month. The problem? You should only be paying about 30% income for housing, not 50% or more. (And yes, before we moved we were paying about 60% of our monthly income for housing alone.)

Pennsylvania can be overpriced for other reasons, namely due to that the realtors are typically also the appraisers, so they jack up the price to where they want it to sell. (They've been doing this for years though.) So the 50 year old house sells for about the same as the just built house. And yes, we did see this in our house searching too - in some cases it was almost cheaper to buy land AND build a house than buy a 50 year old house; typically where it wasn't was either due to cost of land or because the house was majorly run down.

But the biggest problem of all is the builders. They want to make a certain amount of profit per house, and so they build houses that are a certain price level (e.g. putting a 3500 sq. ft mansion on a 1/4 acre lot - and yes, I've seen something like that in Northern Virginia, where the house barely fit on the 1/4 acre lot in pretty much every direction). So they build these big expensive homes that a lot of people cannot afford, and it becomes the same problem. So, not only are the existing houses overpriced due, but new homes are too expensive and out of reach of the majority of people.

Due to these reasons, I had told a number of friends, family, and colleagues that the market will crash at some point. Their argument in Northern Virginia was nearly always "well, the government is here, so it'll always go up" - except, post-9/11, the government is formulating plans to diversify where their facilities are located to minimize the impact such events could potentially have, and has a goal of somewhere between 2010 and 2020 of doing so (at least, the last I was aware).

The problem comes down to when the people that are the basis of the market (e.g. the people in their 20's and 30's) cannot afford to buy someplace, then the market is primed to crash. You can't just push it up to upper ages (e.g. 20's becomes 30's, and 30's becomes 40's) because life spans just won't support that.

Then of course, there is the world's concerns over U.S. consumer debt. Why is foreclosing becoming an issue? Because it is a result of bad debt, some of which comes from mortgages, but the vast majority of which exists (whether foreclosed yet or not) in credit debt - e.g. credit cards, pay day loans, etc. Eventually someone has to pay those, and if people die before paying them off, and the debt has to get covered - by the estate, or by the government if the estate won't cover it. If the person didn't own a house, then more likely than not, their assets will not cover their debt.

So, we have the following problems:
1) Housing is too expensive and pushing people out of the market due to affordability.
1a) Existing homes are overpriced.
1b) Builders aren't interested in building affordable homes.
2) Loans and debts are getting too large and is going to start becoming a major liability for the U.S. economy.
2a) Mortgage issues (e.g. foreclosures) are affecting the U.S. economy.
2b) Consumer debt is primed to make it worse as mortgage foreclosures also cause credit card and other debts to be foreclosed on.
3) Due to debt issues, financial institutions are tightening the reigns.
3a) More people will become unemployed as employers cannot get the extra money to create new jobs, or maintain existing jobs.
3b) As more people are out of work, more foreclosures will occur as they cannot pay their debt.

This becomes very circular very fast, and it only gets worse with each cycle. Now, don't get me wrong - I don't think it will lead to a depression, but it will certainly level the markets.

Part of this also goes back to the economy. One economist wrote a few weeks ago (also for the New York Times) that the long term P/E ratio should be around 16, and indeed looking at a really long term it is. But over the last 10 years, it has been hovering around 27, after being at its high of above 40 in the bubble of the 1990's, which is also where was in the 1920's. What does this mean? It means the economy is still overvalued. Unfortunately, most are looking at the 1 to 5 year range when looking at P/E ratios, and in that range it is still 16; the problem is they are not looking long term enough. So, the tech bubble of the 1990's has still to fully deflate.

Well...I better end it for now. Catch you around.

E-mail, Stress, & Filtering

2007-08-15T23:31:00.000-04:00

ArsTechnica had an interesting article on 8/14/2007 about E-mail and Stress.

Honestly, it doesn't really surprise me that most people find e-mail stressful. Why? Because they don't use the potential of their e-mail interfaces (e.g. webmail interfaces such as Yahoo's, or even Thunderbird or Outlook) to manage their e-mail. What do they do? They let the e-mail accumulate in their Inbox, and then read it - one by one - and decide what to do with it.

That's probably fine if you only get about 20 e-mails a day. But, most managers and employees at most companies probably get a lot more than that when they're heavily involved in a project.

In the past, I've personally received over 700 e-mails on a daily basis from legitimate sources, and I still get over 100 e-mails a day from legitimate sources. However, I have never found e-mail to be stressful. Why? Because I use a feature of my e-mail tools to manage that e-mail, and organize it so that I can get to exactly what I want when I want it - and I don't have to read it all first to do so. What's this feature calls? Filters.

Filters operate basically the same regardless of the e-mail tool you use in that they allow you to look at various criteria such as message or subject content, who it from, or who it was sent to and perform different actions based on that criteria. Those actions, however, vary from e-mail tool to e-mail tool.

So why am I calling it an e-mail tool? So that I can refer to both web-based e-mail interface - such as Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and others - as well as non-web programs, such as Outlook, Eudora, and Thunderbird.

Below I'll cover 3 of the e-mail tools I'm familiar with and how filters work in them.

Google's mail service - gmail - has filters that allow you to "star" and apply labels to e-mail. Their labels allow you to search your e-mail so that you can get exactly what you want.

Yahoo! Mail has more traditional filters. You have to go into your Mail Options page and then click on the Filters to add them. At least base paying subscribers get 50 filters that they can apply. For most, this should be enough. Filters with Yahoo allow you to direct e-mail to folders based on the criteria - to/cc, from, subject, message body.

Outlook and Thunderbird are very similar that I am familiar with how they do filters. In Outlook, it's called "Rules", while Thunderbird calls them "Message Filters", but they're essentially the same. Both let you do a lot more than simply apply a label or putting message into a folder - you can forward, reply, or do a number of other things.

Outlook has one advantage over most when couple with Exchange in that it can upload filters to be run on Exchange prior to your access via Outlook. Of course, that really only works when you keep all your e-mail on Exchange. But even when couple with Exchange, you can still do all the rules that you have when you're just using Outlook as it will run some on the server (Exchange) and others on the client (Outlook). However, Outlook also has a disadvantage - it can really only handle about 100 rules.

Any how...if you ever find yourself stressed by e-mail, take a few minutes and set up filters in your e-mail tool so that you can properly manage your e-mail. As you get more rules set up, you'll just feel the stress melt away, and you'll find it is a lot easier to notice and find e-mail from people as well.

Beauty of the ODF File Format

2007-08-15T23:07:00.000-04:00

One of the real beauties of the ODF file format is that most anyone can talk to the people that created it and submit ideas to them for helping to improve it. I've submit a couple ideas - I don't know if they'll make it in or not, but because of how ODF is managed - which is done by OASIS, I am able to.

How does one submit? Well, this is by no means the official method - for that talk to OASIS - but from what I can tell, I'd suggest the following, which is what I'm doing (or trying at least):

1) E-mail the OASIS OpenDocument TC's Office-User lists your idea. This is a public, unmoderated list for ideas about ODF and implementing it. So it should be a good place to (a) see if your ideas is or is not already incorporated, and how feasible it is.

2) Once it has been vetted out a bit by #1, then submit a comment to the ODF TC. This should get you on the way to getting it into the standard.

This should hopefully put you on the right path to getting the format adjusted to meet some new feature.

So what did I submit?

Well, the first time I sent something in was to for an idea I had around enabling multiple people to work on the document. The Office-User's said that (a) it was already supported by DocBook (also supported by OASIS), and that it could be done using some of the features in ODF.

And then recently I sent another idea in - per document dictionary lists to augment the spell checker. If accepted, it would allow user's to be able to set word lists specific to a document so that they don't come up as mis-spelled regardless of whether you open your own document, or you pass it on to another user, who uses a different computer or even productivity suite.

Comparatively, Microsoft's OOXML format does not have this ability. In fact, the only people that would really be able to modify OOXML is, well...Microsoft. The ECMA organization pretty much guarantees that in their standard approval of it - it was designed to be compatible with Microsoft Office, not with meeting the needs of a Document Format. ISO approval would mean that an ISO committee would be able to modify it, but then it wouldn't be compatible with Microsoft Office any more. So, essentially Microsoft has locked up the OOXML format.

So, whether I am implementing a new office productivity suite (e.g. OpenOffice, KOffice, etc; or even just one of my own), or simply being a user of any supporting office productivity suite, ODF is the way to go - I can have a say in its features.

For more information, see the OASIS OpenDocument TC's website.

Jobs like that...

2007-07-27T10:20:00.001-04:00

NYTimes is reporting on some of the interesting aspects of being a worker for NASA (article here). From the article:

In one instance documented by the accountability office, an unidentified worker explained the fate of a missing laptop, worth $4,265:

“This computer, although assigned to me, was being used on board the International Space Station. I was informed that it was tossed overboard to be burned up in the atmosphere when it failed.”

The employee was not disciplined.

What a job?! Take home a laptop, and blame on being burned up in the atmosphere. Wouldn't we all like jobs like that?

Suns word to Microsoft and others...

2007-05-22T09:40:00.000-04:00

Sun's CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, wrote a great piece in his blog yesterday about patents, customers, and business entitled Censoring Free Media (Or...Fighting Letters to the Editor). To some degree, as Groklaw's PJ put it - it is an open lesson to Microsoft on how to reinvent themselves for the new age in the software industry, the age of free, open source software. And to that, perhaps the following is the one of the best quotes that can be taken from it, and one that all businesses in any industry should remember:

...the best way for us to do so is to embrace community content, not litigate against it. Those that resist the transition to free media are valuing their patent portfolios more highly than their customers. And that's not Sun's business model.

Oh, and thank you Sun for standing behind Red Hat and Ubuntu; I hope you will not limit yourselves to just those two (I hope they were just examples of whom you would stand up for), but regardless - thank you at the very least for standing up for them even if you do.

Microsoft...a threat? Not likely.

2007-05-15T09:44:00.000-04:00

Recently Microsoft started talking up a storm about it patents and how F/OSS infringes them. But as many are noting, it's just a ploy. Well...

For starters, perhaps this is what Ballmer has been working on for the last few years since he took over the lead from Gates. If so (and I have not way to confirm that), then that is quite interesting as it would reveal the difference between Gates and Ballmer and how they have lead Microsoft over the years, and who is possibly to blame for some of the mis-steps at Microsoft. But that's only speculation. On for the real stuff...

First - let's assume that software patents in the U.S. are valid. In which case, it is likely as others have said that they don't likely have much to stand on as a lot of it is likely basic stuff that more likely than not has a lot of prior art to it. Of course, they do have patents on NTFS and FAT; but those are not likely very enforceable since they have let them go so long - non-licensed FAT implementations that would be infringers have been available for more than 5 years, so either (a) the implementations provide prior art that would invalidate the patents, or (b) they would not be able to enforce them due to patent laws. - if you don't enforce your patent within 5 years of knowledge of infringement, then you lose the rights to the patent and enforcement. At least for FAT, time should be up; and I would find it very hard to believe that Microsoft did not know about the FAT implementations in Linux before 2002. Other patents that Microsoft has likely have a similar problem.

Now, of course, for the above, we assumed that software patents are in fact valid in the U.S. While the Federal District courts have held them to be, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has not upheld that yet, and in fact SCOTUS has been actively working as of late to correct the mistakes of the Federal District Court - and Microsoft knows this. There were two rulings by SCOTUS recently that overturned positions of the Federal District Court that have been on the books for nearly 20 years, and Microsoft was the defendant in one of those rulings - AT&T vs. Microsoft. In fact, if you read the footnotes in the ruling from AT&T vs. Microsoft, it seems that SCOTUS is looking for a case to rule on software patents, and likely rule them as invalid. Microsoft would not want to be that case, but if they push the F/OSS community they will likely be backed into that corner - and patent threats will do just that.

So what is likely to happen - well, either Microsoft will wisen up and forget about it (not likely given their history), or they will push companies and the F/OSS community until their patents are revoked or software patents themselves are completely invalidated by SCOTUS.

In the meantime, don't believe their statements, and don't fall prey to their FUD.

Note: Edit - Corrected title from 'thread' to 'threat'.

Linux, Windows, Mac, and Usability...

2007-03-30T21:56:00.000-04:00

Today (2007-03-30), there was a post on OSNews.com concerning the difference between Linux, Mac, and Windows and what Apple and Microsoft got right, but the Linux community doesn't get...

While admittedly, I did not read the article it linked to, reading the summary and some of the comments on OSNews brings about a bit of a stench. Why? Because it is the same arguments over and over and over. Don't get me wrong, the Linux community has come along way on the Desktop, but at the same time they just don't get it. That is...

I've used Windows for years, and dabbled with a Mac from time to time. (I'm even thinking about getting a Mac for home use now.) And I use Linux full-time at home, and part time at work. I do have a Linux Desktop system at home, and I do love it. But at the same time there are numerous things that I hate about it. Any how...going back to using Windows...

Windows has had usability guidelines for a long, long time. It use to be part of the requirement for being able to become a certified Microsoft Developer (MCSD) - it might still, I don't know; the last I looked at that was 1999 and I haven't considered it since. Part of those usability guidelines ensure that users can use the system multiple ways - keyboard AND mouse by default - and define a very specific set of standards (ALT+F4, ALT+F1, ALT+F3, WinKey, ALT to get the menus, etc.) and they make Windows very easy to use. In fact, I can usually do a lot of things faster in Windows than I can in X under Linux because of the keyboard shortcuts - X is very dependent on a mouse being available for use - God help you if your mouse dies in the middle of an X session. Mac is pretty good too - they have standards behind how the Guis are designed and layed out, and standardize their keyboard/mouse intersction as well, though it does not work quite like Windows does (e.g. the menu is not so easy to get to [last I checked], so it can be harder to figureout what the keyboard shortcuts are to do stuff).

Linux, on the other hand, is this wonderful world of customization - which is fine for experienced users that have used the system for years. But what the community simply does not get is that you have to have some kind of standard. Customization is great, but you can't drive the system by default using both the mouse and the keyboard - one or the other. KDE and GNOME and the other Windows Managers and Desktop Environments simply do not do that by default. So unless you spend the time to get the entire system configured to do so (which will take a long time to do) you don't get it.

The Linux Desktop could be greatly advanced by the managers standardizing. Even Mac and Windows are quite similar is many respects; but Linux is way out there on its own. Of course, Linux probably inherited that from its Unix brethren, with whom it shares a lot of its idealogoy.

So please, for the sake of the Linux Desktop make the standard UI sane and usable. Make it work by default so that I can hit the Penguin Key (or Windows Key, for those of you with a Windows Keyboard instead of a Linux/Penguin Keyboard) and bring up the KDE or GNOME menus. Give some continuity to the interfaces by default and make it well known. It's great that you adopted ALT+ to get to menus, but now give us some standardization to other programs besides ALT+TAB. Give us access to the system, and make it easy to use.

Free the Arists from DRM and make the world a better place...

2007-03-12T00:49:00.000-04:00

Help make the world a better place in every way you can.

This really should be what we all try to do - making the world a better place; and there are many, many ways to do so. First of all, start by treating those around you with respect and being nice. Secondly, uphold the laws the land so long as they are just and fair and God-honoring. Third, be a civil servant. It's great to have beliefs, but you also have to do something with them. In democratic and republic societies (e.g. the USA, Canada, and most (all?) of Europe, as well as a number of other countries) this means voting, petitioning, and joining together to make the laws and society better for all.

So, why am I writing about this now? Well, the Free Software Foundation though its Defective By Design "division" offers us all the chance to get on board and help put an end to DRM (e.g. digital rights management that has only ended up - and can only end up as - ditigal rights restrictions). DefectiveByDesign is putting together a petition for Apple's CEO, and Disney's board member Steve Jobs, calling his "bluff" concerning his open letter that was distributed a few weeks ago pertaining to the DRM in iTunes. Mr. Jobs basically said that the DRM is there because the labels (e.g. Warner, EMI, etc.) demand it and won't let music be distributed without it, so far as on-line goes, so Apple has to put it in there to make them happy, and, by the way, opening up FairPlay (Apple's DRM scheme) will not work, but will only make it harder to make FairPlay work - or something like that. DefectiveByDesign is calling for Mr. Jobs to (i) allow artists who are not bound by the labels to be able to distribute their music and movies on iTunes without DRM if they desire, to (ii) do what he can at Disney to get Disney content DRM free, and to (iii) work with the initiatives to repeal the USA's DMCA.

If you're interested any of this, then please go to www.defectivebydesign.org and look for the open letter to Steve Jobs; I've also tried to include a direct link here:

Be careful - you only have until March 31, 2007 to sign it. On April 1st, they are delivering it to Mr. Jobs - apparently including a jester's hat with it too. So please, if you want to make this world a better place, give artists their freedom, and help everyone to be able to get out of this DRM nightmare, then please join DefectiveByDesign and sign their petition. It'll do the world a favor.

Microsoft's Real Plan?

2007-02-25T16:27:00.000-05:00

Microsoft is in trouble. They've taken way to long to deliver the next generation their primary product (Windows), and the development cycle with it was horrendous - so bad they cannot do development that way again and survive. On top of that, they have placed the Computer Industry (and users) at a cross-roads - Office 2007 requires so much retraining that upgrading to OpenOffice 2.x is cheaper than upgrading to Office 2007 based on upgrade costs alone. (OpenOffice 2.x's user interface is familiar enough to most users that they will barely know they switched unless they are really big power users and use all the VBA functionality.) Moreover, the industry is moving towards standardized document formats, which Microsoft refuses to natively support. So, the Computer Industry is currently primed to chose a different OS and a different Office Productivity Suite.

So what is Microsoft's real plan? A few years back, after Microsoft was told they could not embrace and extend Java, they created .Net, and made it a central focus to move everything Microsoft related to be based on .Net. Today, they have achieved quite a lot in that arena. Add to it the recent Microsoft/Novell deal concerning Linux (which the Linux community generally does not like) and perhaps some of the pieces of where Microsoft is heading will start to fall together.

More than anything else, .Net is an enabling technology for Microsoft. Since they created it and wrote it, they could tie it to their current offerings (e.g. Windows on x86). But they also seem to have planned into it the ability to remove Windows from the stack. That is, like Java, .Net is a framework that allows programs to be written independently of the OS, theoretically, and hardware. .Net is tied to the way Microsoft does things, but as the dotGNU and Mono projects have shown the .Net framework simply needs to be ported to a different OS and architecture platform to move the applications (at the source level) to that new OS and architecture. So now Microsoft's own code is "highly portable" to something other than Windows (again, theoretically). True, Microsoft is not supporting .Net on other platforms than their own (Win32, Win64), but they could if they wanted to. (Frankly, it would be surprising if they did not already have a port of .Net to other platforms.)

Add to all of this the recent report of Microsoft selling Novell's SuSE Linux faster than expected.

So what is going on here?

It has been my speculation that .Net was the start of Microsoft's plan for how they will survive in a post Windows world. Yes, their Windows platform is currently the most widely distributed - but (a) people have a lot of issues with it, and (b) Microsoft can't continue to develop it any longer the way they have. Perhaps they will surprise us with a new development model for it, or perhaps the surprise is something even bigger...

Imagine (for a moment) Microsoft releasing a new version of Windows - Windows NG (for Next Generation) - that does not provide any backwards compatibility whatsoever. If Microsoft did this, they would need to be able to quickly push a lot of people to support their new system; or they could ride on the shoulders of giants - existing OS's that are already out there that have a lot of software and they would only need to push their major third party vendors over and the rest would be a piece of cake. Of course, to do this, they would only need to release .Net NG with support for both the latest version of Windows (e.g. Windows Vista) and Windows NG, release a new version of Visual Studio to support both but only allow it to compile to .Net's CLR, forcing the .Net framework to do it upon install or on first run. Most Windows developers use Visual Studio - and the majority of those being trained are only being trained on .Net - so this would quite easily move everyone to the new Windows NG platform.

So, then if it is so simple for Microsoft to move people to a new platform in a few short years (yes, it would take one to three years for this all to happen), then how could Microsoft use an existing OS? What would there be for them to use? Well, there is always the BSD's, but then Microsoft would have to fork and support their own - kind of like Apple did; which could be costly. Or, Microsoft could chose a Linux Distribution (Novell's SuSE?) and make it its primary back end; add on the extra tools to move their infrastructure over (Vista's User Mode Sound and Video drivers, and .Net) and a user interface to make it look like Windows (so user's can't tell), and Microsoft could quickly find themselves with (a) a very large set of applications that are already developed and running their system, (b) an easy way to support old applications (official Microsoft support of WINE?), (c) little trouble with moving their existing customer and developer base over (ala .Net), and (d) user's that are much happier. On top of it all, they could get out of the Monopoly they are currently in with Windows, as there would be a lot of vendors out there competing (Oracle, Red Hat, Novell, Slackware, Debian, etc.), and they can finally claim better security.

Now, if this actually happened, I would not expect Microsoft to open source .Net or any part of the infrastructure or interface support they would have to provide to the Linux distribution. (Shared Source? May be, but it wouldn't be very GPL friendly wherever they could get away with it.)

So, what is Microsoft's Real Plan?

Honestly, I am not an insider with Microsoft in any way, but looking at how they have set themselves up over the last few years, how they have separated out their Windows platform internally, and their deal with Novell and its sales results; it may very well be that their real plan is to make the next version of Windows have no backwards compatibility and be based on Linux or a BSD.

Here's hoping.

Consumers and Customers...

2007-02-06T22:28:00.000-05:00

Perhaps one of the things that annoys me the most about businesses today is that they no longer have a concept (or at least most do not have a concept) any more of a customer. They view everyone as a consumer. It's bad enough that it is not just business any more, but culture itself. We've convinced ourselves that we are not anyone's customers, so much as we are consumers of goods. As a result we try to consume as much as we can, without giving thought to whether we really need to do so.

In truth, we are customers and we deserve to be treated as such. When customers are viewed simply as consumers, they are treated poorly. More importantly, they are made to believe the "more for less is better" - which is true for consumers, but not necessarily for customers.

For example, let's look at a restaurant. If a restaurant views their customers as consumers, then they will try to stuff as much into their meal as possible - regardless of its impact on the customer. This, in part, leads to customers overeating, gaining weight, and ultimately health problems. However, if a restaurant views their customers as customers, then they will serve a meal that is properly proportioned and ultimately healthy - it won't be too much, or too little.

Some simply argue that it is market forces at work. However, that is pure BS. Yes, if customers demanded to be customers instead of consumers some businesses will listen. However, customers are ingrained with this idea not entirely from the market - but also from education - specifically the economics classes and instruction.

Economists take the view of customers as consumers because it is easy for their subject to view it as such; just like they view businesses as producers. While this view has limited benefits in the subject, it has a lot more devestating impact on society at large, as society takes on the view and ultimately kills itself and everything around it trying to live up to it.

Please, treat us all - people and businesses alike - with the respect we deserve. We are customers. Yes, we do 'consume' a certain amount of goods, and we need to restrain ourselves as well, but we desire the respect of being a customer.

Software Being Hard, and Engineering

2007-02-04T15:16:00.000-05:00

A story ran today on Slashdot and also on OS News about why software is hard. It was interesting reading the responses - especially on OS News - as everyone seemed to offer their own opinion on what was hard about software. Both stories link back to a single article entitled Why Software Is Hard. However, the irony was primarily at OS News, where several discussions got off about how Software is NOT Engineering, and that is where I'd like to focus today...

Programmers are the hardest people to deal with when it comes to getting them to do actual work, and do it the right way; and then, when the product comes out and is handed over to the customer they will offer up hundreds of excuses as to why it wasn't what was promised - and there are a number of reasons that are truly valid. However, they seem to miss the entire point of how to solve the majority of those problems.

On the other hand, properly trained Software Engineers[1] seem to be able to do a lot better at delivering products on time and on budget - and yet they are also programmers. So what's the difference?

The difference is in how they both approach the problem of writing software. A programmer will look at the requests and say "yeah, I can do that"; and the software engineer will sit back and discuss requirements, architecture, concept of operations, design, time line, budget, and much more. So how does this really affect a project?

The Software Engineer's approach of discussion the requirements, architecture, concept of operations, design, time line and budget will reveal to them a lot more about the product - and they will (if the customer participated in the discussions all along) more likely than not provide exactly what the customer asked for and quite likely on time and within budget; but even when things are not on-time or outside of budget - the reasons for it are clearly documented and can be improved upon later on. I.e. the Software Engineer can learn from one project to improve the next project.

The programmer, however, will ask a few questions, get some basic requirements, take a wild guess at the budget and time line, and then get lost in the mess of work that ensues. They will also get lost in "requirement creep" and make a number of mistakes that require additional time to fix - and more money to do so - and more likely than not deliver a product that does not meet the customer's needs, expectations, and may get thrown out. The worse part is that the programmer has no way of gathering metrics to improve their work the next time around; so they make the same mistakes on the next project again and again - and they don't even know they are making the mistakes.

One of the arguments used by programmers is "writing software is an art, not engineering". This argument lies in the history of the field. First, a lot of early computer people started off in electrical engineering; they built the hardware, wrote the basic systems; and then moved on to build new hardware and became computer engineers. This part of the field still exists within the Electrical Engineering discipline. As those early computer people got more involved in hardware and improving computers, more computer people came out of the mathematical discipline (which was heavily used due to the Electrical Engineering involved) and took over more of the software that ran on the computer. And this is more or less since early computer usage was primarily for performing either very hard computations that took a long time, or quickly spitting out a lot of easy calculations. In either respect, these mathematicians did not like the engineering side, and saw their mathematics as more of an art, which they then pushed into the software.

However, since then software has grown quite a bit. Languages have formulized from assembly and a very chaotic method of programming to functional/structural and to more object oriented methodologies. Each time the field moved away from chaos it also gained a level of structure to how it was done, yet the mindset of the program writers - programmers - remained much the same. "It is an art."

In the last decade or so, however, business is realizing that there really is more to programming than "art" - specifically those businesses that are involved in a lot of engineering - mechanical, electrical, computer, etc. As a result, they are pushing back and saying "we can do this in our engineering houses, why don't we apply the general ideas behind it to our software programming houses?" This bore the software engineering field.

The key difference, however, is that the Software Engineer realizes that the "programming process" is just the implementation phase of creating software; and that there is a lot more to be done before the implementation phase can even begin. Comparitively, the programmer wants to just jump in and start writing code as soon as they have been handed a task, skipping the rest of the process, and possibly even ignoring any part of that process if anything from it was handed to him/her.

Thus, programmers can be seen as simple "grease monkeys" that are needed to put the bolts together; but will have a hard time rebuilding the entire system in a working order without much pain. Such jobs can easily be outsourced, and even sent overseas. However, software engineers hold a valuable value-add over programmers - they know the details of how the entire system works, and how it all fits together, and can repeatably build it to work; thus their jobs are not so easily outsourced or sent overseas.

To bring it back to the OS News and Slashdot articles, I noticed on the OS News responses that most all agreed upon the problems - bad management, too many unknowns, bad communication, etc. Yet the programmers could not offer any solution to the problems. It is exactly these kinds of problems that Software Engineernig aims to fix.

A few comments stuck out to me in reading over OS News.

Comment One:

I've always had a saying that goes something like this:

Writing software will be comparable to engineering when A) 10 different separate product management groups can come up with an identical spec for an application and B) can hand that spec to 10 different development groups and get an identical product back in terms of usability, bugs per LOC, performance, and price.

You do that today, and you'll get 100 different applications.

In other words, when results are predictable to within the 90th+ percentile in writing software, then it will be an engineering field. Until then, it's very much an art as Knuth outlines.

To this, I must say: Yes, you may get different specs, but each program - if engineered instead of merely programmed - will come back adhering to the spec, and likely with similar bugs per SLOC, with similar performance, price, and usability. They will differ some between them, but in the end - from a programmatic view point - they will be so similar it won't matter. Software Engineering applies itself not simply in the process of getting to the program, but also in the HMI (Human-Machine-Interface), MMI (Machine-Machine-Interface), Programming Structure, and Programming Logic. Programming is only a small part of Software Engineering.

Comment Two:

Whatever you want to call it, there is a process that should happen before the first lines of code get entered into your editor. It comprises some consideration of the problem, generation of requirements, specification of the interface, design of the data structures and algorithms, and representation of the control logic. These processes might not be so clearly identifiable in many cases, but they happen. Or at least they should.

I know exactly what you mean and we even studied these disciplines and let me tell you one thing.. in 99% of the time and situations, this is the biggest waste of time imaginable.

The reason?

Because you'll end up after hours of careful planning with an implementation block which will require utter redesign.

Been there, done that. I'm programming for 5 years actively now (I know it's not mastery) and honestly haven't been in big teams on big projects, but I did try to go this route and it usually backfires in a bad way.

You might say that the planning was poor etc. but especially if you are about to use new stuff (eg: new database, sure it's just another SQL but different from the one you used before) you WILL stumble on the way in a bad way.

My personal opinion is that a bit of good verbal (unless it's a huge planning) discussion about the internal logic BETWEEN PROGRAMMERS (no I don't want to talk about that with customer or marketing, it wouldn't make sense to them anyhow) is a good thing, but keep it realistic.

Also there should be "tries" of basic stuff before ventures take place. Eg: try out the new DB if it can do all the major stuff first exactly the way we think it can etc. Documentation is never good enough source of capabilities and pitfalls.

To this I must say: Yes, Engineering Software does add overhead. However, it will also drive down the cost. I've been programming for a decade now, and can see a true benefit to Software Engineering. It helps solve a lot of problems, and helps the implementators of the product do their job many times betters, on or under budget, and on time or even early. Also, Software Engineering is not so much about the technology you use, but the process you use to do to it. Moreover, the manager of the engineering team should ensure that they have the right people, with the right skill sets, to do the job. Per the quoter's DB scenerio - you bring in someone who knows the DB already instead of training the team on the DB, and so forth. (And you build that kind of stuff into your costs - cost for the project, and the cost of doing business.) Finally, with Software Engineering (as I said above) you learn from your mistakes; sure this time around you may have had to redesign it for some reason (likely because the process was not held to strictly enough, or communications were not held up well enough); but you learn the next time and you can fix the problem - ensure you have better communications, say no more to feature creep, etc. Unlike programming, Software Engineering has a feedback loop that helps it improve itself over time.

Now there is another, newer field that is starting to crop up - Systems Engineering. Simply put, Software Engineers simply deal with the software parts of the system, where as Systems Engineers extrapolate a level higher to get a full view of the entire system (e.g. hardware, software, server components, etc.). Many Software Engineers probably do a good bit of Systems Engineering along their way too.

[1] I say properly trained since unlike any other Engineering Discipline, there is no barrier to someone calling themselves a Software Engineer - unless they are from the State of Texas, which requires Software Engineers to pass tests just like any other Engineering discipline in order to call themselves a Software Engineer. Honestly, this is probably a good thing; even though it would also be a pain in the butt to do, and expensive too.

Response to Cringley...

2007-01-29T23:05:00.000-05:00

I often find Robert Cringley to have a lot of good ideas and such. He has, as of late, been getting into a few rants on Google. While I posted the below to the comments section of one of his articles (see here), I would also like to post it here. I think this is really likely. Enjoy...

A couple things....

1) Between AOL, Yahoo, and MSN - well, AOL needs to die. It's old, and decaying, and built on AOL-based (non-standard) protocols that AOL controls. I love AIM (which needs to somehow survive AOL dieing), but AOL needs to go. Also, MSN needs to die too. Sure, Microsoft will fight tooth and nail to keep it from it, but let's face it - it (like AOL) does not really offer anything but a lock in to a certain vender (Microsoft, as opposed to AOL), and we all know how evil Microsoft is. A nail in MSN's coffin is what is needed - well, not just one nail, but enough to seal the lid shut sow we can put it six feet under. Which leaves Yahoo - Yahoo actually offers something useful, though they may not offer it well enough to survive. Yahoo does not lock in users to any one vendor (Windows/Linux/Mac, AOL/MSN/home-town-ISP), but does provide a number of services (small business hosting, good e-mail, etc.) that do well. So, Yahoo needs to survive; but AOL and MSN need to see the mortician.

2. There are two problems with the rest of the article. (a) Interconnecting the ISPs as you suggest really only puts more Internet connections together - that is, after all, how the Internet is actually formed. ISP A agrees to allow traffic from ISP B to ISP C; ISP D - peered with ISP C - has someone trying to access ISP B, so ISP C lets it through to A which lets it through to B. It's really a simple formula. Putting more ISP-to-ISP lines in, while not riding on the central backbone providers (the really BIG ISP - L3, etc.) simply extends the Internet traffic that much more. It would primarily create a second Backbone network; sure it may not go directly to the primary backbone but it would still do the same thing with a slighly higher latency. It'll be quite hard to do otherwise.

(b) It is also just as likely that Google is looking to sell those datacenters as really big versions of their already selling search appliances for companies; thus competing more with main-frame systems than with ISPs or video, etc. Given Google (i) already has such appliances on a smaller scale, and (ii) focuses their primary business in search, I think this is a more likely scenerio.

Remember - Google is not really trying to compete with Microsoft; but if they happen to, so be it. In this case, Google would be leveraging Open Source technologies that they are already using in their own datacenters to sell a really large appliance to businesses to supplant main-frames that do heavy data crunching (analysis and searches). Think searching the FBI fingerprint databse, or facial recognition search type facilities.

They would be competing with Microsoft in terms of supplanting Microsoft Windows in the main-frame market. They would also be competing with Sun Microsystems (oh wait - isn't Eric Schmidt on their board?), IBM, SGI, HP/Compaq - and their AIX, Irix, Dynix, HP-UX, etc. products; which are already being eaten alive by Linux, which also happens to be Google's OS of choice. Ironic, isn't it? And doesn't this sound so much more like Google to start with?

Iraq...

2007-01-24T23:39:00.000-05:00

I have been planning to primarily stay away from political stuff, trying to stick more to technology and related things; but I was thinking (as I was waiting on Slackware 11 to install) about the State of the Union Speech last night by President Bush and some of the reactions I had heard thereafter, such as the Democratic response.

The part of the speech I would really like to focus on is Iraq. Many - the media and the Democrats - are flailing about trying to get the US out of Iraq. However, pulling out of Iraq is just going to be a mistake - and (like it or not) the President was very, very right about how we need to deal with Iraq.

Iraq is a long term project - it was always a long term project. Back after WWII, the US spent a decade or so rebuilding Japan - and it took more than a decade to do so for a compliant nation without additional outside interferences. Comparatively, Iraq - with a majority of its citizens being compliant - differs in that it does have some non-compliant citizens and it has a lot (and I mean a lot) of outside interference. To really be successful in Iraq we need to have a 20, 30, 40, or even 50 year strategy, stick to it, and follow through.

The problem, however, is that since the WWII the media has learned just how much they can sway the public, and they are doing so against the better will of the nation, and against the better interests of the nation. That is not to say that mistakes have not been made, but to face the reality of the commitments we have made and to stick to them.

But then, perhaps that is the problem. As of late, people do not want to have commitments. They leave marriages after years, abort children in the womb, jump around from job to job, and the list goes on and on. May be that is the lesson that US really needs to learn - to start keeping commitments again.

Perhaps, if the Democrats and the Media have their way and the US exits Iraq, the fall out and the impact that it will have on the US (and there will be one) will teach our leaders that they must start keeping the commitments the country enters into, whether or not the citizenry always cares for them doing so.

And no - the Democrats do not have an edict from the people of the United States to pull out of Iraq. And they are just as guilty as the Republicans. But then, it does not really matter who is in power in Washington D.C - it will always run as it always has, and neither party can control that.

The New Tax to Support Corn Farmers: Ethanol

2007-01-22T23:06:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I know a lot of me may flame me for not having some hard evidence in this, but I am sure there is a lot out there if you do the research. This just one issue that really, really, really bugs me...

Ethanol has been all the rage for quite a while now. In fact, some states are now requiring gasoline to have a minimum ethanol content. For example, a few months ago Virginia started requiring something like 10% ethanol in the gasoline mixtures. Unfortunately, this really ends up being more of a tax than anything else. Why?

Most ethanol in the US is made from corn, which is (to start with) highly government subsidized - it keeps the cost of corn low; but the problem is we make so much corn we don't know what to do with it. So, instead of bringing down the price (as that would hurt the farmers further), they decided to make it into fuel - ethanol - and there are a number of factories starting up to convert corn into fuel. This sounds good and all, until you consider how efficient corn-based ethanol is, at least when mixed with regular gasoline.

From my own, personal experience - ethanol is the worst thing I can put into my car. While adding it does bring the price of a gallon of gas down, say from $2.50 to $2.00 (or really liberally $1.50), it increases the consumption of gas by my car by nearly 2 - so for every gallong of gas that I was using, I am now using nearly two gallons. Thus, that gallon now costs me $4.00 (or $3.00 on the liberal), an increase of $1.50 (or $0.50 on the liberal). Not only that, but in increase the emissions of the vehicle similarly.

Now, figure this - the state is taking a cut on every gallon for (i) sales tax, (ii) taxes for use on the roads, and many other taxes for other things therein related. And then big oil takes it cut per gallon, as well as all the costs for production and distribution, and finally the station gets its miniscule $0.02 cents per gallon. So, all those cuts now get doubled by simply adding in a little ethanol. Everyone is richer except the consumer...*cough* customer *cough*. And they wonder why the American public is so concerned about the cost of a gallon.

Me - I want my hybrid that I can plug into an outlet and perhaps never use a gallon of gas with unless I chose to. But that's another time.

But it'll still run Linux!

2006-09-11T20:47:00.000-04:00

I was talking with a friend yesterday as we transported a few computers to his car. Some old systems we were going to put together for a cluster of sorts - though quite a heterogenous system at that. The one system - and early Mac system with a 68000 processor - was being transported and he was debating getting rid of it. The system, however, will still run Linux quite well.

We mused however, as the Linux folks will always - or nearly always at least - be able to cry "But it'll still run Linux!" as even the latest kernel series (2.6) will still run a ton of old hardware. Yes, you may have to specially build it, but you can usually find a distribution for some of them, and then build to the latest if you desire. Regardless, the memory requirements of the kernel will still do very well for older processors and computers. No, it doesn't necessarily mean that one would be able to run the latest and greatest distro that comes out - likely not. But with some crafting, most software - even X Windows - is still fully usable on older hardware.

So, when will it ever be said "But it'll still run Windows?" I doubt one will ever hear that said and still be able to run what Microsoft is just releasing.

So if you have some old hardware to play with, then check out the competition. Learn a bit more (or a lot more) about computers and their uses. Linux is coming around. It'll extend the life of older computers for quite a long time. (My Sun IPC is still supported by the 2.6 series. It was built in 1991.) And perhaps you'll find that you like it well enough to run it on your main computer.

But, if nothing else, it'll give you or your kid something fun to do, and teach the better side of computers and show you just how safe a computer can really be.

(c)2006

The Silver Bullet for software?

2006-09-10T16:51:00.000-04:00

A while back I read an articled posted on Rebel Science's website entitled The Silver Bullet. At the time, I didn't have a blog so I tried posting it to Slashdot, only to get it rejected. Any how...here's my little talk on it below. Hopefully, someone will find some benefit to the discussion here.

Rebel Science has an article entitled
(http://www.rebelscience.org/Cosas/Reliability.htm) The Silver Bullet: Why Software Is Bad and What We Can Do to Fix It talking about why the author thinks that Brooks' No Silver Bullet theory is wrong.

Abstract from the article: "There is something fundamentally wrong with the way we create software. Contrary to conventional wisdom, unreliability is not an essential characteristic of complex software programs. In this article, I will propose a silver bullet solution to the software reliability and productivity crisis. The solution will require a radical change in the way we program our computers. I will argue that the main reason that software is so unreliable and so hard to develop has to do with a custom that is as old as the computer: the practice of using the algorithm as the basis of software construction(*). I will argue further that moving to a signal-based, synchronous(**) software model will not only result in an improvement of several orders of magnitude in productivity, but also in programs that are guaranteed free of defects, regardless of their complexity."

I, for one, do not agree with him - at least in his conclusion - as he seems to miss out on several factors. First and foremost, hardware IC designers do encounter algorithmic methods in hardware (he asserts the opposite); and secondly and more importantly, there are factors in the software environment that are simply not present in the hardware environment. Third, event-based programming is just as complex as algorithmic programming; and for this I shall simply point to concurrent programming models (which are basically event-based models) as the example.

That is to say, the environment in which hardware runs is decidedly (and irrevocably) governed by the laws of physics, and can be very easily determined. The IC paths are decided once when the circuit is created in the hardware board, and will never change short of physical damage of some sort (e.g. heat, a screw driver falling on it, etc.). So, the hardware folks can from the physical aspects alone guarantee that the hardware will run the same every time. In the case of componentization (e.g. ISA, PCI, USB, etc.) everything is set to a specific standard that is based on the same principles, and thus can be just as guaranteed until it reaches the software (e.g. driver) level in which case it then enters the software environment.

However, the software environment is not guided by any laws or principles that are set in stone. The software environment is what you make it to be. It is first constructed by the Operating System, and then modified by every program and hardware driver that is then executed by the Operating System. Thus, from an environmental view point (even aside from looking at algorithmic vs. event-based models), the environment of software is unable to be known for sure. Software is designed to work and is tested in known environments where the software environment can be controlled (e.g. what OS, hardware, hardware drivers, software, etc. are used and run and what order they are used and run in). However, in the real world - when software is distributed to customers and users for use - the environment of the software is heavily unknown. One customer could have one hardware configuration and another could have one completely different (e.g. ATI video card vs. nVidia video card); moreover, two customers could have identical hardware configurations but completely different software environments (e.g. Linux vs. Windows, or even Windows 2000 vs. Windows XP vs. Windows Vista) that may be either homogenous or heterogeneous in nature to what the software was tested
in.

It is for the environmental reasons alone that Brooks was correct in his assertion that there is no silver bullet - even if he did not realize or vocalize that reason. That does not mean, however, that unreliability is a must for software.

Software fails for numerous factors: physical failures (hardware); environmental failures (OS, drivers, libraries, etc.); design; bad programming practices (e.g. lack of error checking); security (e.g. buffer overflows, etc); and numerous others. While the physical failures cannot be helped, they, like any of the others, can at least be minimized in their impact by programmers checking for errors, and it is the very lack of programmers checking for errors that leads to numerous errors and failures - allowing a single non-fatal error to cause a catastrophic failure.

Hardware designers can trust that their environment will never change outside of certain parameters and do their best to make the parameters that the hardware runs in to cover what most people will experience (e.g. 0 degrees centigrade to 200 degrees centigrade). However, software programmers and engineers must not rely on their environment to be what they thought it may be - every function call (aside from the extreme basics - addition, subtraction, comparison) must be scrutinized and error codes - all of them - handled to the best of the ability of the program at the earliest possible moment of failure. Software can be made
reliable.

(c)2006