AG's Blog

Outsourcing to Americans

All of the conversation of sending jobs overseas, I thought this one should probably get more play.
Actually, there are areas within the US where inexpensive unskillled labor could be utilized.

Not sure why more worked isn't farmed out to these areas. Well, I suppose one reason is that we have a burgeoning and profitable prison labor system.

Wired News: Outsourcing to the Heartland

Do-it-yourself religion

What an interesting way to define freedom of worship. Heck, you could even define it as designer religion. Clearly, people will always have great debates over religious text interpretations and the their associated clerics and officials. Of course, I have my own opinion.

Essentially, the bottom line is whatever believe system you choose, let it be one that pleases you. I have never subscribed to the theory that everyone must believe the same dogma, nor share the share the same spiritual context. Just do not beat people over the head with your choice.

OpinionJournal - Spin Your Own Faith

Cold day in hell

I never thought I'd see the day when Bram would sell the fsck out for the bucks. Clearly, its all about the benjis(read benjamins), yet another very compelling piece of intellectual property likely to buckle under the legal pressure. I suppose every entrepreneur dreams about getting a nice payday. Why should Cohen be any different?

Well, P2P suffered a similar blow during the Napster era. I'm sure that BitTorrent will continue to be a popular protocol for filesharing, as it has been Open Source for quite awhile.

FWIW, the announcement only affects people that would visit Cohen's site to search for illegal torrents. There are several other places to find that elusive torrent file ;)

Web Site Agrees to Help Curb Access to Movies - New York Times

The Equalizer - $100 laptops

I've heard much about this project, as it is a most important means of leveling the technology playing field in developing countries. Naturally, the deal only applies to those countries that would benefit most from the access. In keeping with the reuse theme, I would expect that the program should drastically reduce the alleged huge amounts of dated computer dumping that occurs in some locales.

…My heart’s in Accra » One Laptop Per Child - a preview, and a request for help

Mass and Venezuela deal for oil

Gosh, the rising cost of heating oil has forced local politicians to broker deals on their own. Big slap at GW. He certainly deserves it.
However, I'm not sure that oil is destined for the poorest areas of Mass. I would imagine that some people in Roxbury could use it too.

The report also mentions that a section in the Bronx will also get lower sweet deal on heating oil. I wonder who negotiated that deal?

Hell, maybe we should send Kwame to broker a deal for Detroit ?
BBC NEWS | Americas | Venezuela gives US cheap oil deal

Child protection or censorship

To what extent would you go to protect your child? The internet is a wealth of information, and could be a great resource for anyone. I'm not sure that schools should determine what children have access to this information and who should not.

Blogging does not have to be an invitation to pediphiles and such. To the contrary, children can learn viable problem solving skills, provided that they have adequate supervision. Additionally, other avenues of opportunity could be explored by introducing these students to blogging (ie A+ Certification, Java, XHTML, PHP, etc).
The real issue is that the teachers are woefully unprepared and technically inadequate in these areas. So, it is far easier to simply restrict the students, instead of forcing these teachers to attain the necessary training.

Boing Boing: Principal says students can't keep blogs or MySpace profiles

Electronic waste

*Sigh* I wonder if all of these machines could have been spared if they had not adopted the WinTel model?
Very likely that people could take machines that were said to be 'unuseful' or too old, and install Linux or FreeBSD. Taking it a step further, one could remove all of the hard disk drives and run a diskless workstation. Essentially, extending the so-called useful life of aging hardware.

I would love to be able to spend time in Africa to show interested parties how this could be done. Apparently someone is already doing this work (Namibia || Direqlearn). Unfortunately, it doesn't get much press.

Poor Nations Are Littered With Old PC's, Report Says - New York Times

Top-Ten Blogging Tips

Do you want more blog gusto? Here are some great strategies for a more effective blogging experience.

I love Technorati tags, and obviously RSS. MT has a plethora of plug-ins and is very extensible and hackable. If you're willing to tinker there are an infinite amount of customizable features to be exploitied. Never really thought about opening a CafePress store, but heck you never know..

Micro Persuasion: Ten Blogging Hacks

Socialized medicine

A battle is raging and it appears that some of our larger corporations are losing big time. It appears the fight is to figure out a means to avoid the legacy costs associated with providing adequate healthcare to employees.

It is clear that insurance companies have reaked havoc on an already broken system. I have not been happy with fact that my pops has struggled to make ends meet, while he has spent thousands of dollars on anti-rejection medicine, to maintain the kidney he received roughly 5yrs ago. Is it a necessary evil? I'm not at all certain. What is clear, is that we have a system which is financed by the taxpayer and employer. The argument has always been, that the government should not finance healthcare.

However, the model appears to be working quite well in Canada and Europe. Why haven't we adopted at least a pseudo-social policy stateside? The answer is fairly obvious, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies have a symbiotic relationship. In that, they stand to lose a boatload of cash if the government were to regulate the system. Unfortunately, the consumers are those the suffer most from the collusion tactics. I'm really surprised that we have not witnessed more John Q types of rampages, as a result of the ever increasing health care premiums and the general exclusion of the under or unemployed.
Every taxpaying citizen should have access to affordable healthcare.

However, I do not believe that large corporations should be picking up the tab for healthcare.
Should this practice continue you'll see more companies in financial straits, just like GM.
At this stage, bankruptcy may be the best bet for GM. Only time will tell.

Blogcritics.org: As G.M. Goes: Why We Need Universal Coverage

G-Men Rising

I'm totally recovered from the Bombers post-season failure. It appears that the Giants have a very legitimate shot at the NFC East title. However, I believe they're one-year away from a return to the SuperBowl. We now have a deep threat in Plaxico Burress, and Jeremey Shockey seems to have dedicated himself to the game. Perhaps he's picked up some lessons from another great Giant tight-end Mark Bavaro?

If Tiki Barber continues to run the ball extremely, it will certainly take the pressure of Manning, as he seeks to continue a yeoman-like sophomore campaign. Go G-men..

The Constant Gardener

Now that the Trebuchet competition is over, I can focus on Finance and accounting course. Essentially, the semester has ended. I took an opportunity and peeped another film. The Constant Gardeneris based upon the John Le Carre novel, which depicts corruption on behalf of large Swiss pharmaceutical firm. The company decided to use Sudanese people as guinea pigs, as they 'alpha' tested AIDS drugs. I was quite saddened, but not surprised that this was not a fictional account, the pharmaceutical industry braced for the release of this film. Essentially, it lifted the skirt of the whole dirty secret of human experiments of so-called expendable people. Very despicable to say the least. Certainly brings back to memory the infamous Tuskeegee Experiment. How much is the life of an African/African American really worth?

Not really sure how the film arrived at its name. I tried very hard to find clues to its title. None were readily obvious. There was a great deal of clandestine activity on behalf of the British government, and you really had to pay close attention to understand who the bad guys were in this tale. The actors were very capable and quite plausible. Perhaps the only issue that I have with such flicks is that there is always the 'white man' God complex. In that, the folks of color never seem empowered or just totally helpless. Thus, the well-equipped European rides in to attempt to save the day or snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
I never really cared for these types of flicks. The answer to why this occurs is obvious. No African wrote or financed the film. So, you only get one perspective. Were there any African insurgents? Who cooperated with the Europeans in the first place?

Despite its faults, I'd still recommend that you peep the flick. The knowledge gained will be astonishing.

Google - Decoupled

Here is a unique way to look at all the advanced features within Google. Does it simplify or mistify?

Soople; easy search in Google. Advanced calculator

Options - Hedging your bets

I've never done very well on the stock market, in fact I don't know many people who have done very well. My first experience with an IPO was the upstart Transmeta(TMTA). I remember it well, as I used my now defunct Datek account to buy 50shares. I was really amped because I thought the Crusoe CPU, which employed code morphing(software that speeds up the processor) strategy was far superior to that of Intel's hardware(Moore's Law) model. I remember salivating after reading Transmeta's initial white paper. I may have also been pursuaded due to the fact they had Linus on their payroll too..

Well, Transmeta had the misfortune to have launched its campaign in 2000, immediately following the dotcom implosion. It also had logistical problems, and couldn't deliver on its increased battery life for notebooks. I lost $500, but it was a great learning exercise.

Now I primarily do traditional vehicles (Real Estate, Roth, and 401K).
Never really thought about Options, as a possible power move. I always thought that it required big gusto loot :) Ejovi helps clarify the strategy.

Ejovi Nuwere

Making of a trebuchet

Lately, most of my time has been consumed by coursework. As the semester winds down, I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. One of the more interesting courses this semester is Systems Engineering. Our final team project is to build a trebuchet. It was a perfect sedgeway from my earlier post. The idea is to use system engineering tools and predictive analysis software (ie. FEA, Atreb V2.2, Minitab) to develop a robust trebuchet to satisfy customer requirements.

The course was divided into two phases:

Part I. Planning and predictive analysis
Part II.Validation, Fabrication and Testing.

Both Part I and Part II, make up what is called the System Engineering "V".
Left side is strictly design for robustness and prediction. The right side is the hardware validation and testing.
We were not allowed to build/test the treb until Part II.

The commercial software package Atreb V2.2, was tremendous, as it helped us understand the physics of a trebuchet. Although, our group is comprised of mechanical and electrical engineers. Nobody knew how the contraption worked, and I certainly wasn't born in the middle-ages. The treb operation was based upon first principles, but it clearly was non-trivial.

We used Minitab, a statistical tool, as a means to develop a sensitivity analysis, which would help validate our DOE.
We could then better understand the variability or the noise factors inherent to our design (ie. main arm pin friction, counterweight mass, main arm length).
After running Minitab, we studied the main-effects and then used this information to begin modeling the treb in CatiaV5.
Once we had a general idea how to model the package, we set out to improve robustness.

The Hypermesh FEA package was used to develop a contour plot to measure the fatigue stresses across the critical surface regions of the treb main arm. Constraining the main arm in space and applying a 50N force in -Z direction, helped us simulate the worst case force that our 30gram, lead shot filled projectile could induce on our treb arm. Yeah, I know the King's Men and the Roman Empire didn't have access to these tools, but they weren't trying to get an 'A' in graduate engineering course either. I suppose this is where we seize the advantage ;)

Each team built and exchanged CAD models and engineering drawings, to that the next team could fabricate their respective designs. To appropriately, satisfy the customer requirements (read the King), our device must consistently fire a projectile into an array of common party cups, nailed down to some plywood. The better the accuracy, the more points you score. There will probably be some environmental hazards (ie wind, rain, etc). If it's anything like our earlier battle-bot/stack block competition, we should be in for a real treat.

Our class has been divided into two teams and each team was responsible for building the others design. That is, we'd spent all our waking hours perfecting an excellent design only to have the other team build it.
Actually, this practice is very common in industry. One team does the strategy, the tosses it over the wall to the next team to execute the vision. We probably spent 80 man-hours collecting repeatability data, and resolving the design quirks of our opponents design. All modifications must be documented in a final paper.

If all goes well tonight, I will grab a few short clips of the teams in action. I will also post pics of the two competing trebs, and the targets. Time for bed..

Sony DRM gone astray

I have discussed the dangers of DRM in earlier posts (Part I || Part II). Lately, Sony has come under fire for its part in installing a rootkit on the entertainment media it sells. What is interesting about this story is that the author who originally broke the story is a certified M$VP. The guy makes a living developing tools for windows API and such. Although, I strongly oppose any technologies which have the ability to modify the behavior of consumer personal use hardware. I think it's a bit curious that someone from the M$ camp would be complaining about DRM? Smells a bit hypocritical to me. Moreover, both M$ and Sony have competing DRM strategies, so if Sony's strategy fails (as is the case of M$ DRM), well I believe you can connect the dots.

Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » CD-DRM Rootkit: Repairing the Damage

Public facing calendars

I manage websites for two non-profit organizations as well as my own. It is customary for any relatively large organization to inform users and staff members of events via a calendaring system. As most of you know I am a fervent supporter of Open Source tools, especially the LAMP variety. However, I've not had very much success with obtaining a solution that is impervious to malicious bandits. Although, I fancy myself as a fairly competent sys-admin, I must trust that the developers of these useful scripts have taken every effort to close holes in their products. People have told me that I'll always have problems of this sort, if I continue to use open source tools. However, I disagree. I know that the community has and can do better. Hell, if an operating system kernel has thousands of lines of code (ie Linux), and does an excellent job of patching security vulnerabilities. I would imagine the same could be done with relatively simple calendar scripts. Perhaps there is a dearth of eyesballs on the code. Who knows?? Bottom line is we must do better.

I submit that I'm not the best Perl or PHP guy, but I'm clear that in two instances, the developers of these calendars chose ease of use over security as part of their systems engineering roadmap.

Certainly a dangerous trade-off. As a result, both calendars (PHP || Perl) were compromised and I was then forced to take down both calendars. It seems that the grey hats , were keenly interested in setting up E-Bay storefronts and IRC servers. Luckily, we don't maintain anything that has any monetary value on that server. Additionally, neither attempt exposed root access. My datacenter monitors bandwidth use quite closely, so the accts were closed in short order. Nonetheless, it's pretty embarrassing and forensics are very time consuming.

I'll eventually restore the calendars, but not after I've chastised the developers for not applying patches early and often. An easy solution would be for these guys to install an RSS feed to alert users of new patches and potential vulnerabilities.

Update:Actually, one of the developers has recently setup a blog with an RSS feed. I think he gets it.

Kingdom of Heaven

I've been slow to post entries due to increasing courseload. Rest assured I've been very productive.
Please take a moment to review my latest flick review. I grabbed a torrent and bag of popcorn and took a much needed break from some classwork.

Kingdom of Heaven takes place during the Holy Crusades(roughly 1100AD), the Muslims were attempting to retake Jerusulem from the Christians. The irony is that the Christians had butchered the Muslims, and stole this land from Muslims in earlier crusades, but now the will of the Pope and strength of the Roman Empire was on the side of the Christians.

The corruption of the Pope was exposed earlier in the film, and justice was typically found at the end of a knight's sword. Many life lessons were played out for the benefit of the viewer, and there was the ubiquitous love story to capture your attention in the somewhat lengthy piece.

I was impressed with the fact that Islam wasn't demonized as with most films that describe the Christian experience. The tools of war also, grabbed my attention, as huge trebuchets were chosen to attack the walls of the Roman Empire.

My interests in the trebuchet has peeked in recent weeks, as I have been working on designing and building one for Systems Engineering graduate course. I'll provide a separate post describing my experience building this device.

If you enjoy a movie with a sprinkle of the old english vernacular, you'll really enjoy this flick. There is a some gore, treachery, and honor. I would not give this film the same rating as the movie Gladiator, but it worth a couple hours on a Friday night. It kept my attention, and I gave it 7 outta 10.

Roadcasting - nuance in collaboration

Everyone has talked about road rage. Why not road collaboration with a technical twist? Many people have already discovered P2P networking to share their most prized music and video files. Wouldn't it be nice to share this data real-time with your fellow motorists?

Think of this scenario.. You're speeding down I-95 in route to your destination, and you realize that there is a live network available roughly one mile ahead. So, you are now able to share your most treasured mix-tape with the some nearby vehicle ahead of you. What better way to reduce the boredom of a very long trip?

Yes, there will be discussions of DRM; however, I see a larger benefit of the technology at stake here.. In the spirit of sharing, wouldn't it also be great to quickly share weather, traffic, and police activity to those motorist who share the same network. I believe it would be far superior to the outdated CB radio.

Taking it a step further, if the local municipalities could be trusted to use the network to provide 'real-time' traffic reports, I would suspect that the utility of the network would increase exponentially.

Om Malik's Broadband Blog Roadcasting Rules

Level playing field for success

Finland is probably best known for Linus Torvalds, inventor of the Linux kernel. However, what is probably least known is its educational system. In fact, the majority of their students attend college because it cost virtually nothing.
In fact, Linus was able to incubate the idea of Linux due in large part to the length of time he was able to stay in school, while pursuing his undergraduate degree. I imagine that if he were paying an exorbitant amount for tuition, perhaps the level of creativity would have been far less substatial.

In contrast, if an American student spends more than five years pursuing an undergraduate degree, they are often ridiculed.

Where are the young US inventors? Are they progressing through the US education system?

According to the Finland Minister of Education, students are not separated based upon ability until age sixteen. Clearly, this type of strategy is a very different than how the US has manages education.

It appears that European countries have always taken a different approach to preparing its students for success. The concept of taking ownership in educational process is of paramount concern to Finland, I do hope we can learn a few lessons from our foreign neighbors.

BBC NEWS | Education | Education key to economic survival

Lean Manufacturing Musings

Lean Manufacturing principles are really the buzz amongst people who are employed in the auto industry. In fact, there are also interesting synergies relative to Information Technology, An excellent text,"The Cluetrain Manifesto", echoes the sentiment that our manufacturing base must radically change to compete on a global market. A common theme in the text is, "Adapt or Die." It has become apparent that the manufacturing base is leaving North America, particularly in the auto industry. So, I'm dumbfounded as to the reaction and the general paralysis of some of the major players in this space. Regarding the auto industry, it is clear that some will survive despite the tough landscape. The Asian auto industry seems to have some of the same challenges, but have emerged in better shape than their American counterparts. Although, the symptoms are well understood, methinks folks get caught up in a fervent debate over 'equivalent wages'.

That is, "How can the US blue collar workers compete against foreign labor force getting paid $0.23/hr.?"
The problem is much, much, deeper than the question above. In fact, you really need to go back and look at the US and UK historical political agendas to really understand how history repeats itself. Clearly, Americans have long prospered from a very imperialistic, resource grabbing culture. We've commandiered the wealth and sustenance of many nations as our infrastructure has flourished. If you look back at the Industrial Revolution, you'll note that power grab that ensued took place largely at the expense of nations ill-equipped to compete globally against the US and UK. Steel and other raw materials were used as leverage to control the global economy. Steam engines helped the shipping business grow exponentially, and pushed the US trade influence overseas. Of course, you must also not forget the advantages that the railroads afforded the US.

Now fast forward to the 21st century, US steel industry growth is non-existent. In fact, it was only a matter of time before other countries perfected metallurgical science. After many years of isolation and suffering at the hands of imperialistic nations, Japan and China have emerged as chief competitors in the global marketplace. So, what does all of this mean??

Well, it means that the US will have to figure out a means to strengthen its ever shrinking manufacturing base or learn to prosper in a service based economy. If the US is to fortify its ailing manufacturing base, it must first place an emphasis on educationg its people. Particularly in the areas of science and engineering. I discussed this phenomenon in an earlier essay. Arguably, the majority of the most far reaching innovations and disruptive technologies (ie rapid prototyping, nanotechnology, etc), have been fostered by overseas corporations.

Regarding the service economy, it will has become painfully obvious that US workers will have to begin to accept lower wages. I see it as simple mathematics or regression to the mean. You really cannot sustain a largely unskilled labor force with inflated salaries over the long run.
It simply doesn't scale very well. Many of these manufacturing workers will be forced to re-educate themselves. Learn new skills (ie computing, etc) Adapt or perish. I do not fault the laborers at all. The problem was created by a system that never asked very much of the line operator. I would argue that the assembly line operator was viewed as the most non-essential component of the entire assembly process. In retrospect, this was a huge error in judgement. If you're going to base your livelihood on a manufacturing base, you're line worker must play an intricate role.

History has shown that many blue collar workers earned lower wages for hundreds of years without much ability to increase their salaries. I'm sure it can be done again. The bigger problem is that Americans are generally a glutonous people, and most live well beyond their means. However, I digress.. I can expound on this matter in a future post.

I'm not at all certain that American automakers and their respective suppliers have actually figured it out. I had the opportunity to listen to a talk given by the CEO of a Tier I auto supplier. He addressed the following questions:

• China's impact on the global economy
• Collaboration of historical domestic competitors
• Diversity of thought

He asserted that the above concepts were critical to understanding the mess that has become the global marketplace. I'd have to agree that most collaboration and diversity will help the US market compete globally. However, I am uncertain that we really understand the urgency.

Compound Thinking: Lean Manufacturing Principles -- Trust the Team

Has the Pocket PC really surpassed Palm?

Some of you may already know that the Palm has partnered with M$ to collaborate on new smartphone - Treo 700W. The article below states that this is a major victory for M$ and it spells certain doom for the Palm platform. The authors list their top five reasons for Palm's demise.

However, I'm not sure I agree with their rationale. I suppose my view could be somewhat biased, as I've been using Palm products since 1999 (ie Palm IIIx, and Treo600). I've always appreciated that there are large amounts of development tools(smartphone || Palm OS) for the Palm platform. Moreover, the author makes a false assumption that corporations have secretly marveled at smartphones powered by WinCE. I would argue that the Blackberry was more widespread than any other PDA in the office place. Recently, Palm has begun to gain traction in some corporations.

Palm partnered with M$ to extend its customer base and leverage some of M$ existing market.
Make no mistake, Gates and Co., had to share some of the M$ secret bits to close the deal. Obviously, that strengthens Palm's position in the partnership. I highly doubt that you will see a flock of users abandon Palm as a viable platform. The authors appear to be on some weird FUD campaign.

PalmSource was purchase in multi-million dollar deal, so obviously there is a great deal of value in Palm as a platform. If PalmSource is committed to pushing Linux as its platform of choice, I only see greatness for its future.

At the end of the day, the customer will decide which platform offers the best value proposition.

Five reasons for Palm's slide | CNET News.com

Keep tabs on your pals

Very big brotherish, not sure I'd want anyone to know my every move. Not even my closets friends. It reminds me of Enemy of State. Pretty scary. I suppose that everyone that carries a cell phone already has given up that right to stealth, as your location can be pinpointed based upon the proximity of the nearest cell tower.

Track Friends Via GPS - Lifehacker