BillSaysThis

I made this with Sala’s neat tool:

I’m taking longer than hoped to clean up and post the photos from the recent Jersey visit but here’s a Coming Attraction shot, a nice one of Vivian and Joanne playing on the floor with birthday boy Jakey.

Later: Here you go, a couple of dozen photos many featuring the budding superstar.

Towel Day :: A tribute to Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

A great, funny writer gone before his time.

I’m having a little problem with the tendon in my right pinkie so the doctor advised to cut down on typing, meaning even less posting here. Boohoo. But I did want to mention the latest small technical addition I made to the site. Yahoo! has releaed a nice open source JavaScript UI Library and I used the Panel widget to rewrite the way the “Last 5” entries from my politics and movie review blogs are displayed. Just click the link to see it in action.

I’ve also implemented the new blog integration code from RawSugar on this blog and the movie reviews. This version is even slicker, with complete control of how the embedded tag box appears and–this is the new part–how the search results show up too. You can really make it all look like your own site, have the results appear in the same page as the tag box or on a dedicated page. Subsequent tag clicks, refining a search, refresh in place (that is, an Ajaxy no page reload) and when a user clicks the X close button, the same URL where the search started is redisplayed. Very nice work, and you can use it for your blog too, no charge.

Tony Hillerman has been writing mysteries featuring Navajo policemen Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn for more than 35 years so it’s not surprising that 2003’s Sinister Pig works like a quart of the higest quality motor oil. Quickly set up a mystery death for the cops, though we get told first just what’s up, and then tie it in with an odd stop made by the woman Chee has trouble admitting to himself he loves. Bring in a corporate tycoon–remember this was written as the Tyco, Worldcom and Enron scandals were breaking–either sociopathic or believing the slightest inconvenience justifies any action he makes. Slick, smooth, smart. Highly readable.

recommended

So now I’ve read the first, second and fourth novels in Ken MacLeod’s Fall Revolution series. Series is a good name for the books given how loosely connected the stories are, though they do share thematic explorations of post-socialist polities.

The Stone Canal focuses on David Reid and Jonathon Wilde, from Wilde’s perspective, paralleling joint experiences on Earth pre-Singularity and a world named New Mars afterwards. The two meet at Glasgow University in 1975, the first scene set in a bar with politics the topic of discussion. Many of the scenes which have them physically together involve bars or at least alcohol. The Earth-based story skips across the decades, technology developing to lengthen lifespans far beyond what we have today, but the other half is just a few days in Ship City, the only habitation on New Mars. The only inhabitants are humans and human-gestated intelligent machines, some of whom occupy human clone bodies.

Negatives: Macleod poses Wilde as somewhat less discerning than you’d expect a person of his education experience to be and, in a second surprising mistake, clearly overestimates the impact of the revelation of a connection between two of the female supporting characters. I’d also prefer he left out the constant mention of cigarette smoking despite the handwaving cancer immunity.

The book is wildly creative and engaging though, as is the case with many second novels, works too hard to top the screaming success of the first. I can’t imagine not reading Stone Canal, though.

recommended

Jerry Oltion is a familiar name from Analog so when I was looking for something interesting I picked up his novel Abandon in Place. The story starts with a phantom launch of an old Saturn V Apollo rocket from an abandoned pad at Cape Canaveral, witnessed by shuttle austronaut Rick Spencer, visible all the way to the moon before disappearing. After another ghost ship heads for orbit and on to the moon, he convinces the NASA brass to let him try and hitch a ride.

Sure enough, the spaceship is solid enough to carry Spencer but once in LEO instead of shutting things down, his girlfriend Tessa–coincidentally commanding the current shuttle mission–and a Japanese scientist EVA over and the three decide to see where the mysterious vehicle takes them rather than shutting the Apollo down. They get to the moon, the two astronauts ride the LEM to the surface and back home.

Only thing is, if Spencer starts to think the wrong way the spaceship starts to disappear right from under them. The ships, it seems, are made solid from the communal desire of humanity. Once home and away from the government scientists looking to see if Spencer’s ability can be turned into weaponry, he and Tessa are able to create almost anything out of thin air. Flowers, moon landers, almost anything.

Their ability is the manifestation of the Eastern belief that everything is really one, death is simply another transformation and, heck, if enough people really want something bad enough, they can make it come true. In fact, Oltion brings in the Pope Dave character he’s written about elsewhere to tell our heroes that he and his predecessors have actually known about this for centuries; they’re the source of religious miracles.

But just as Satan figures large in the Bible, an Eastern European nationalist is able to tap into the power for evil. Bagdoni has no qualms over creating towering, indefatiguable warriors who swarm west across the continent. Spencer and Tessa fly to England in a desparate bid to stop him and, of course, just barely succeed. In the process the astronaut learns the truth about existence I mentioned.

Abandon in Place started out as a Nebula Award winning novela, which I remember reading and enjoying. Science fiction economics being what they are, I suppose Oltion had too much incentive not to expand the story to book length but the idea (or the execution) simply doesn’t support it. Find the original and skip the novel.

not recommended

With 20 days until the opening kickoff of FIFA World Cup 2006, it’s time to jump into the fantasy team planning. I finished fourth in the SportsFilter Premiership fantasy league and would love to improve on that for the biggest tournament on th eplanet. The FIFA fantasy site seems different than all the other sites I’ve played on because there’s no player budget and I could simply select the best players, but only three from any one squad. So no just clicking all the Brazilians.

Here’s my starting 11, at least for now:

Forwards: Thierry Henry (France, Arsenal), Lionel Messi (Argentine, Barcelona), Emmanuel Adebayor (Togo, Arsenal)

Midfielders: Ronaldinho (Brazil, Barcelona), Kaka (Brazil, AC Milan), Frank Lampard (England, Chelsea), Damarcus Beasley (USA, PSV Eindhoven)

Defenders: Gabriel Heinze (Argentina, Manchester United), Rafael Marquez (Mexico, Barcelona), Ashley Cole (England, Arsenal)

Goalkeeper: Petr Cech (Czech Republic, Chelsea)

Man, this is gonna be fun!

These days it’s hard to imagine anyone in America who hasn’t been touched by cancer themselves or through a close friend or family member. Both my parents have had bouts with it–fortunately mild and caught early–and I’ve seen how it can ravage a body that just days before was strong.

Today, May 17, 2006, is LIVESTRONG Day, a program from the Lance Armstrong Foundation to raise awareness of what is still a major health problem all around the globe despite years of effort by researchers. Lance said “It’s time for our nation to address our issues. Together, we can help change things for the better. As a team, we can make a difference for survivors.”

The LAF is asking bloggers to participate by making a post, to “write about how cancer has affected you or your loved ones and what could have improved the experience or made it less traumatic. You can also add your view about health policy issues facing cancer survivors.”

I think the biggest problem we have in health care today is that corporate financial interests are allowed to outweigh individual health concerns. That is, almost all aspects of medicine and treatment are controlled by the profit demands of pharmaceutical, hospital and insurance companies (and the many other industries which serve them).

This results in over 15% of Americans having no medical insurance and many others with insufficient coverage for disastrous episodes such as cancer, no research being done on treatment for illnesses which have too few patients, and doctors forced to treat patients like cars on an assembly line.

Another element of the disease our culture faces is the lack of responsibility from the people who work at cigarette and food companies. The problem with cigarettes is obvious but not enough people look at the way food companies behave like drug pushers. Whether its Taco Bell’s “I’m Full” and Fourth meal campaigns or Nabisco Oreo’s cute little kid vs. Grandma quick licking ads, their only thought is to sell you more food that’s no good for you.

I’m not suggesting everybody turn into stern-faced vegetarians. But the problem we have from eating poorly are just starting to surface as the Baby Boomers start to reach retirement age; consider the huge increase in Stage 2 Diabetes as a pretty good predictor of future problems. In 10 to 20 years all the huge people you see on the street (or in the mirror) will be facing heart disease, high blood pressure and worse.

What I think I’m trying to say here is that new drugs and better insurance coverage are necessary but not sufficient. We need to develop wellness care systems as well, programs that help people make the right choices now to prevent terrible problems later. Free speech and free markets are great things but, as with anything, only in moderation.

So TS1 and I flew east Thursday to spend the weekend with the ‘rents and finally get to give our Nephew Jacob a hug and kiss for his first birthday. Many pictures but will be processed and posted during the week. He is so cute and big (tall, not chubby) and a fun little boy. Even when hungry, and later tired he didn’t cry or scream. I guess my brother-in-law learned a few things from his older kids 😉

Yesterday we went to the Grounds for Sculptures, a serious place for art lovers, with 35 landscaped acres of outdoor sculptures and installations and nearly 2,000 different types of trees on what used to be the New Jersey State Fairgrounds. The place was founded in 1992 by J. Seward Johnson, Jr., a sculptor himself and an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune but featuring the works of many different types of artists. Many of the bigger pieces of course resonate with the pioneering work of my personal favorite Alexander Calder.

This morning I couldn’t resist the pay per view allure of Liverpool v. West Ham in The FA Cup Final from Cardiff and, man, what a cracker! Down early by two goals, I thought our defense forgot the game had started but they finally woke up and our skipper put a pass spot on from 40 yards away to Djibrille Cisse and the Frenchman put a sweet one timer to the near side of the goal where Shaka Hislop had no chance of stopping it.

Not far into the second half Gerrard tied it up with his own goal from short range and I thought we were sitting pretty. But the Hammers, big underdogs or not, came to play and got out in front not long after. The rest of the second half looked like injury after injury to us until just into injury time Stevie G put a beautiful shot from just past the 18 yard box straight into the back of the net.

Extra time was agony and with no more substitutions available I wondered if we could make it to the final whistle with 11 pairs of legs still vertical. Just like last year in Istanbul, though, we held tight for the shootout and then I knew we’d go home happy. Sure enough Pepe Reina, showing his Spanish teammates he’s ready to replace Casillas next month in Germany, stood his ground and stopped three of the four West Ham shots while Hamann, Gerrard and John Arne Riise did the business for us.

Suh-weet!

Of course, tomorrow’s Mother’s Day. That’s a whole ‘nother story, right?

Wow! We had a great meeting last night. I was a bit nervous beforehand, not having received many RSVPs, but the turnout was more than enough to fill the seats and we had to steal a half dozen chairs from the next room over. The discussion, on the implications for security and privacy in an always-on world, was really good too and would have gone on much longer but I could see a few yawns and watch checks, better to end when people are still involved than falling asleep.

Major thanks to Cindy Cohn of the EFF and newly-independent open source ambassador Chris Messina for coming and sharing their expertise and experience and to security maven Phil Burton for moderating and more. Thanks also to Steve Levine, Barry Kramer and Dante Billups of Fenwick & West for arranging our use of their lovely conference center in Mountain View.

Aside from pointing out the obviously less vulnerable Mac and Linux platforms, the key takeaway was use these new gadgets and services, use the web, but do it from a protected setup and with both eyes open because the attacks use both technology and social engineering to try and separate you from your money and other valuable resources.

(Ed. Note: When people talk about OS X being more secure, and not just because the smaller number of machines is not a tempting target, this article from the Cult of Mac is a good technical explanation of what they mean.)

Chris specifically suggested that Windows users start by installing the following free, mostly open source products:

• Firefox: web browsing
• AVG: antivirus (but boy do they try and convince you to buy a slightly different version!)
• ZoneAlert: firewall (the free personal edition)
• Thunderbird: email

Using these four applications instead of the Microsoft equivalents will reduce vulnerabilities substantially.

All in all, I’m very happy and looking forward to the next JHTC meeting, which will be in Tuesday, July 11, at the Fenwick & West conference center in Mountain View. The evening’s program and guest will be announced in the next week or ten days (keep your fingers crossed).

Robert J. Sawyer is a good writer, though not one of my favorites, and when MVPL didn’t have as many books that caught my fancy I grabbed Calculating God, released in 2000. Essentially an examination of the clash between religion and science, a subject Sawyer also looks at in the Neanderthal Parallax, I’m not sure where he actually comes down on the matter though I suspect the sort of Deus ex machina ending is a clue.

Plot: Friendly alien scientists (Forhilnors and Wreeds, beings from two different planets) come to Earth to research our geological and biological history. Their worlds are only a few decades beyond us in technology but have uncovered a sixth fundamental force in nature (we only know about five) and this has convinced these rational beings that God, at least in the sense of an intelligent designer, must exist. Finding the commonalities between their worlds and Earth should provide the rationale for why.

I don’t quite understand why but Sawyer, a Canadian, includes a subplot where two American religious nuts–fresh from assasinating a doctor who runs an abortion clinic–plan to blow up a priceless exhibition of Burgess Shale fossils at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto where our protagonist, Dr. Thomas Jericho, runs the Paleontology department. Anyway, it doesn’t take up more than a dozen pages and isn’t more than a distraction even when the plan executes.

The other unfortunate aspect, much more frequently present, is that Jericho has terminal cancer. I guess the illness is intended to put more pressure on the lifelong athiest, making his reaction to the explanations of the undeniably rational Hollus, the Forhilnor he’s assisting, more poignant. Sawyer piles it on a bit much, though, adding a quietly religious wife and late in life adopted son too.

Of course he’s a competent craftsman and where someone less skilled would have me wondering why this wasn’t written as, say, an essay for a philosphy journal but Calculating is pretty readable. Just not exciting or terribly original.

recommended? not sure

Thanks again to MVPL I did indeed read two Iain M. Banks novels back to back. Excession is another excursion into his Culture ‘verse. The other Culture books I’ve read focused mainly on human beings but this time we’re watching the Minds which inhabit and control the starships (and Orbitals) while the humans are mainly present for context and emotional bait.

Banks has said in interviews that Minds are to the huge space vessels as brains are to us, and relatively as powerful. In this novel he explains that the Minds, as a past time and intellectual tool, work at metamathics, a higher order math which take the concept of scientific elegance and purity into an entirely different realm and yet these sentient creations are still capable of managing the workings of vehicles tens of kilometers and more in diameter and interacting individually with hundreds of millions of human and drone inhabitants. Concurrently.

Excession is the story of what happens when something happens that even the greatest of these Minds cannot comprehend. Near an otherwise empty star system a sphere of perfect emptiness appears, as if someone had pushed up from underneath the fabric of existence, and attacked with instantaneous and overwhelming power any object that approached too closely. The Culture ships can’t even probe its interior, nor does it respond to communications.

Taking advantage of this extraordinary diversion, a conspiracy of Minds from Special Circumstances (think of an interstellar CIA with almost no oversight or control) has decided the time has come to teach an aggressive upstart race of beings called the Affront that in this neck of the woods the neighbors don’t appreciate unruly youngsters.

And of course Banks creates a vast cast of interesting characters, from Minds who play off against each to humans and Affronters who only wish to stretch their own boundaries. At times the style of the AI communications got a bit confusing, there were perhaps a few too many and perhaps he didn’t give them enough individuality. All told, something very different and difficult to put down.

recommended

Published in 1995, Feersum Endjinn is another terrific piece of literature from the mind of Iain M. Banks. Extreme creativity, whole cloth characters, re-imagining of several stock SF/Fantasy mythos and snappy dialog. Yet I finished it wondering if there was a sequel I had heard of, but no. I really enjoyed the read but there’s a reason I used the term literature in the first sentence, to me this book is a (successful) attempt by Banks to create a post-modern fiction. Post-modern in the JG Ballard/Thomas Pynchon sense, not a purely science fictional way.

Specifically, the book begins well into the second act and ends before any climax I could discern. Some of the action takes place in a Matrix-type world after one of the main characters is assassinated–once your body dies (enough time) you get up to eight more lives inside a computer world before merging into some kind of electronic group existence–and some takes place in post-human diaspora techno-feudal flesh society.

Except that the living can enter the Matrix too, though a connection embedded in their bodies just after birth or a very sensitive external gear for members of high ranking families, and at least some of the people can use this connectivity to see through others’ eyes and even control their bodies. It’s even possible (just for the still living, I think) to see back into the physical world after sending their conciousness through virtual space to a different location.

Then there are the sentient animals, birds, ants and made-up ones, some of whom carry virtual human minds and others who seem to be their own individual, each type present in both the virtual and physical realms.

The people left on this far future Earth are descendents of folk who chose to stay behind after the vast majority left to live in the stars. The primary remnant of their departure is the base of a huge space elevator, the top of which cannot be seen from the outside nor reached from the inside. There are really no more true scientists, though one key character is the Chief Scientist of the kingdom, and no engineers, though the kingdom is at some type of civil war with the Engineers.

Somehow I think Banks wants readers to believe that all of this takes place within that Matrix-like environment but, like Neo before he took the pill, somehow people are unaware of this.

recommended

I will open by stating the obvious: I have had an easy, comfortable, enjoyable life.

My parents are still alive and married to each other and through their generosity and the lessons they taught I have never gone hungry for as much as a meal, never spent a night outside because I had no place to call home, never been cold on a winter day because I couldn’t buy a coat. I’ve never broken a bone, seen anyone die in my presence, been the victim of a real violent crime, served in the military or even fired a gun in anger (or at all since summer camp when I was 12).

No life, of course, is perfect and so my years have had their downs. I was mugged by four teenagers in Asbury Park when I was one myself but other than being held by one and threatened with a big stick by another but only lost the $6.25 and an otherwise empty cheap wallet. I’ve suffered from anxiety for over 25 years and have barely adequate eyesight, and have chubby to fat since I was 10 despite years of efforts to get thin by eating right and exercising. Apparently too much and not enough respectively. I’ve been divorced.

Getting divorced, though, meant I was single when I met Vivian which I think is the most wonderful day in these 45 years. No one has made me so happy and feel so loved.

Gah, enough rambling. Life is good, enjoy every day you have and every person you meet.

If you’re reading this through the RSS feed you need to click through to see what I mean.

The Jewish High Tech Community May 9 meeting will feature a panel discussion on Security and Privacy in an always-Connected World and is open to the general public (no admission fee and no need to be Jewish either ;). Our panelists are Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, and Chris Messina, a leader in building open source solutions for public service groups, and JHTC member Phil Burton will moderate.

Come on down!

Paul Graham has hit on a fairly different and seemingly effective way to help ambitious geeks launch new businesses. Part of this effort is Startup School and I was fortunate enough to attend today’s instance on the Stanford campus with about 250-300 mostly male, mostly white, Oriental or Indian folks. Honestly I was surprised there weren’t more women since compared to the average tech event in this area this was much more about business than technology. Oh well.

Paul himself was one of the speakers and, frankly, he speaks pretty much like his essays. Intelligent, articulate but, well, essays are meant to be read not listened to. Joe Kraus, founder of Excite and JotSpot, was the first speaker and probably my pick for best presentation. He, like most of the non-lawyers, structured his talk as lessons learned from being the founder that you really don’t get even from working in a very early stage startup. Maybe it was going first and just being a better story teller. The last founder speakers, Caterina Fake (Flickr) and Joshua Schachter (del.icio.us)–coincidentally both acquired by Yahoo!–were much less compelling.

Page Maillaird, a lawyer at Wilson, Sonsini, gave good practical advice and an overview of the legal aspects of the startup; her co-worker George Willman’s patent lecture, mostly had the crowd looking at their watches to see if it was lunchtime yet. Om Malik was good because as a journalist he has a perspective and voice that are different yet very important. Ann Winblad, as the only VC speaker, had everyone’s attention but I thought she didn’t truly deliver to expectations. Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google, was another very good speaker who kept everyone involved and his advice, to get out of Silicon Valley and the US and be inspired by the opportunities and differences in other cultures, sounds good if not quite practical for me just now.

I also spoke with quite a few interesting people over the breaks and lunch, some of whom travelled quite a distance to be at the school: San Diego, Massachuesetts, Seattle, even Mexico City.

Afterwards I picked up TS1 to go to a surprise birthday party for one of my RawSugar co-workers, who was really surprised, and turns out that Joe Kraus is a good friend of hers and was there with his wife and very cute little boy. Chocolate birthday cake from the Prolific Oven is a good way to end the day!