One site I like to visit regularly is LiveScience to which many of our News entries here link to.

A feature that comes up often is their “Top 10″ lists, which are often less informative than they are entertaining, but normally with that geeky science twist. Examples include Top 10 Amazing Facts About Your Heart, Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind and even the likes of the Top 10 Worst Heredity Conditions.

Unfortunately, I didn’t much enjoy going through the Top Ten Unexplained Phenomena which was a disappointment. Such a disappointment, in fact, that I was prompted to write the LiveScience editors. I am making the short letter public here.

Hello,

I’m a regular livescience.com reader and truly enjoy this informative site. Though not as keen on the various “Top 10″s, I’ve found some quite entertaining.

I was, however, a bit disconcerted by the recent “Top Ten Unexplained Phenomena”. A number of the items in the list would better be described as beliefs than phenomena–to be a phenomenon, you need something to detect and measure (anything that isn’t has, by definition, no impact on the world). Of course, you can say that “belief in [ESP] is so widespread”–true and, to me, THAT is really an unexplained phenomena.

I wouldn’t say I believe in ESP though I am open to the possibility… but before we hypothesize about the nature of an observable phenomenon we really must, well, observe it! The notion, for instance, that “psychic powers cannot be tested, or for some reason diminish in the presence of skeptics or scientists” might be very useful to the hucksters with such powers but it pretty much rules it outside the scope of scientific investigation.

Though I’m certain “ghost investigators hope to one day prove that the dead can contact the living” it’s like saying that my grandfather really hopes to prove there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: who cares, until he actually shows up with a leprechaun we can’t explain by other means.

Finally, I felt that many of the items had very strong implications of a dualist bent ("souls” distinct from bodies and the like) without questioning such a revolutionary assumption: NDE/Life after death, Deja vu (underscoring the possibility of “unbidden glimpses of previous lives” while brushing aside more interesting, and testable, naturalistic explanations), and Ghosts (!).

Personally, if I’m in the mood for this sort of thing I’ll head to livephilosophy.com but I’d much rather stick to liveSCIENCE

Thanks and kudos for the otherwise excellent site.

Today, as I took my customary walk to the coffee shop, I passed by at least four teams of two green-shirted youths stopping people on the street to solicit funds. I think I like Greenpeace, I just hate how they generate cash. My problem with this approach is the amount of waste: hundreds of man-hours being spent to transfer cash from one pool (the general population’s pockets) to another (the Greenpeace bank account) without any accrued value for anyone.

We can assume these are all volunteers and will neglect the amount of time they take out of the lives of passers-by. My chief objection is that, once all the volunteer time and energy is spent, the organization does have more funds to do its thing with but the world is in essentially the same state as before save for the calories spent while doing the “work”.

What if, instead, those volunteer man-hours were spent actually producing value in a manner that enhances the world. Funds would still be generated but the world would already be a better place: we wouldn’t have to wait expectantly for our contributions to have some eventual impact–goodness would already have been spread.

For example, lets say Greenpeace organized (or, even better, trained) a team of landscapers. These would still be volunteers, at least for the most part. With such a resource in hand, Greenpeace could do things like bid on the construction of parks for the municipality. Their bid, thanks to the volunteers’ contributions of expertise and manpower, would undoubtedly be below that of other companies (seeing as it only includes the cost of material + whatever contribution is appropriate).

Actually winning the city contract would provide:
- funds for Greenpeace operations;
- experience doing actual work for young volunteers;
- added value and quality of life, through the creation of the park;
- lower cost for taxpayers, since the Greenpeace bid was lower than any commercial company could afford;
- the city with awesome spin, since they managed to build a new park for lower cost while simultaneously contributing to a worthy social cause.

After all these wondrous things have rained down on the world, Greenpeace now has the funds to do whatever goodness they’d first set out to do.

Isn’t that better? Such a means of fund-raising could sustain the organism while bringing immediate benefits before the group even began pursuing it’s primary mission.

For a large organization such as Greenpeace, it wouldn’t be such a big deal to manage numerous teams in various fields (landscaping, information technology, recycling, whatever) each of which could be carefully selected to be in sectors that enhance quality of life while providing volunteers with a means of contributing that’s both more interesting than standing on a street corner and much better on their resume.

No. I don’t have any change for you, sorry.

I know a lot about panhandling, and it’s not just because I live in the city core. I think I understand it, and I spend a lot of time talking with folks who spend most of their day doing it. But I never have any cash for any of them.

The first, purely selfish, reason is that when money leaves my wallet I am buying something. Unless there’s a hole in your pocket, this is your case too. Everyone who gives a squeegee a dime is buying something. It can be pride, it can be a sense of contribution, it can be easing a guilty conscience, it can be to feel the warm glow of human compassion… It can probably be very many things but it’s always something and I haven’t felt the need to purchase any of these things in a long time.

Though I respect, and will defend, the panhandler’s right to ask for cash, I don’t think this hidden tax is beneficial to the society. Notwithstanding the direct costs (cash value transfered and not spent elsewhere), the amount of human time and energy spent doing this could be used to actually generate wealth (by performing useful acts of creation) instead of just shuffling money around. If you assume just one calorie spent per participant, per exchange, and set the average number of queries in a day to 500 and multiply that by 2000 panhandlers, you get a total of 2,000,000 calories spent on basically nothing. That’s enough to feed 1000 people (based on a 2k calorie diet). Sure, you might say “but that’s what the panhandling was for–to feed people”. Irrespective of whether the money is actually used for food, the point is that those same calories, spent doing productive work would result in a salary (i.e. cash for food) AND productive work (i.e. more resulting goodness in the world).

There’s also the question of where the cash is really going. It might be for food, it might be for booze and cigarettes. Other than the potential health or public disturbance costs, these aren’t really a big deal. But what if it’s junk or crack? There is the possible moral dilemma in helping to sustain these bad habits but to me the most important question is where the money winds up. Whether it’s the hell’s angels, the gang of Jamaicans or the CIA, until these drugs are legalized the cash is supporting a system which inflicts pain and terror on many levels. No thanks.

Then there is the panhandling set point or critical mass. A city of a given size can support a certain number of panhandlers. This number is determined by things like number of people, cost of living and average donation. Though the former are relatively stable, average donation is a function of ‘generosity’ and demand (number of panhandlers). Obviously, people can only give so much so if there’s more demand the supply will be spread more thinly. But more importantly, there’s people’s mood and if you’re getting asked for some cash every three steps you’ll eventually get so annoyed that your donations will quickly drop to zero. You could say, that by making panhandling less attractive and keeping the numbers down I’m actually helping those that are already doing it… But that might just be sophistry

Also in relation to the demand density is the fact that as numbers increase, the amount of discomfort experienced by people also increases, probably not linearly. This is, in my experience, especially true for those unaccustomed to the experience such as tourists. And when tourism suffers, the influx of cash into a city goes down and everyone, including those panhandlers, suffers.

Finally, there’s the fact that I like adults. Adults are people who are free to make their own choices and responsible for the consequences of those choices. Yes, I might enjoy it if mom and dad or some surrogate would pay my rent and habits, but in the end I think we’re all better off when people fly with their own wings. I actually support a left-leaning government with social systems in place to aid those in need. At this time, it isn’t a great life but it’s enough to live on while you find your bearings. You need only ask, and you get a place to live and food in the fridge–so be my guest and just do it. However, I’d much rather have every able-bodied individual contributing something–anything, whatever they love or want to do–rather than sustaining themselves parasitically.

That’s why, I’m sorry man, but no: I got no change.

Having decided to give the local "Environment Meetup Group" (at meetup.com) a spin, I came upon the message board which included a post: "You Call Yourself a Progressive, But You Still Eat Meat?".

I’m always a bit irked at the recurring link between environmentalism (which I’m into) and vegetarianism (which I ain’t) and I cringed a bit a the title (since I would consider myself "progressive") but an open mind required I give the linked article a look.

As I was reading it, a number of thoughts, questions and objections popped up and I decided that my first contribution to the group would be to take the time to actually formulate them in a sensible manner. Turns out the post was to verbose for the message board, so I’m sticking it here. It is addressed to anyone but is specifically targeted towards the vegetarians out there.

I won’t repeat large parts of the article, but will simply point out what I’m talking about, so it’s best to have read it beforehand (though not required).

The first part, problems related to eating too much fat and being overweight, is true but simply do not apply to me and anyone can have the same results by choosing wisely and eating sanely. I am living proof that it’s possible to chow down on animals and be healthy and there are many others that are in better shape than I. It’s easy: don’t eat too much fat (or too much of anything, duh). So I’ll just skip all that…

The point about AA and other inflammatory stuff in meat… True, but it turns out that omega-6 fatty acids (e.g. from corn and other vegetable fat), Dihommogamma-Linoleic Acid (DGLA) in particular, can be converted to either the anti-inflammatory PG1 or into arachidonic acid (AA). They can even promote the growth of prostate tumor cells. It’s important to be wary of chronic inflammation and the foods that cause it but the argument against meat is weak and is either ignorant or dishonest.

The arguments against concerns about "having strength and energy on a vegetarian diet"… I can’t contradict that it’s possible to function–the question is are you really functioning at maximum capacity?

Creatine (which you get from vertebrates and can synthesize yourself), administration was shown to significantly improve performance in cognitive and memory tests in vegetarian individuals involved in double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over trials. Vegetarian supplementation with creatine seems to be especially beneficial as they appear to have lower average body stores. (”Oral creatine monohydrate supplementation improves brain performance: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over trial” or ”Sport supplement gives vegetarians brain boost” at ). The fact you’d need this supplementation to be at your best on a vegetarian diet is certainly a concern to me, and just perhaps an indication that we’ve evolved to count on outside sources.

A deficiency in vitamin B12, which is naturally found in foods that harbor B12 bacteria including meat (especially liver and shellfish), eggs, and milk products, can lead to anemia (with accompanying feelings of fatigue, weakness and lethargy). Low intake of B12 and folate are also linked to Alzheimer’s disease ("Diet and dementia" ).

These are two examples of vitality/energy problems with vegetarian diets I know off the top of my head, there are probably more. Of course, vegans aren’t dropping like flies so it’s possible to survive and probably get around these things, if you have the knowledge and the means. But there is no denying we evolved as omnivores (about 2.5 million years ago) and, to me, it’s a lot more natural and easy to live fully as such.

Now we get to the part that’s actually relevant to the environment and, presumably, why this was posted on the Environmental Meetup group. The rain forest is being chopped down for animals and to grow soy for animals so that we can eat animals. From the article "it takes many pounds of soy or other plant foods to produce just one pound of animal flesh". I agree with this fully. Thing is: I, like most of us here, am animal flesh. Ergo, it takes many pounds of plant foods to produce (and then maintain) one pound of me.

Thermodynamically speaking, there must be waste from doing it with an extra step like:

plants -> chickens -> me

rather than just

plants -> me

What bugs me is that they’re always acting as if a person who replaced eating 10 chickens with eating soy would only eat the amount of soy a single chicken gulps down, rather than that for many or all the chickens they’ve replaced. This is patently false.

So if you’re going to make this argument, give me some numbers please… How much soy would we really save if I ate it directly? The argument isn’t worth much discussion without these figures.

As a side note, would everybody be happy if we made the process 99% efficient, say by making less wasteful chickens (i.e. chickens that don’t waste any soy for growing useless stuff like beaks, and intestinal tracks and feathers or for moving around) or would that be objected to as GMO-grossness?

In any case, we obviously need as much vegetable foodstuff per pound as other animals, most certainly more owing to our high-energy-consuming brains. On top of this, eating meat actually reduces appetite ("Why high-protein meat may curb appetite") compared to veggies, so you can eat less calories (i.e. less foodstuff) to reach the same level of satiation (meaning less resources to feed you and a healthier you because you’re eating less calories).

The article goes on to state that "no reputable scientific or medical body believes that eating animals is good for us". Uhm, what?

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) states that red meat is the richest source of iron and research has also suggested that the elderly would benefit from eating red meat, as the iron could prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. The FSA goes on to say that "the iron in animal sources is absorbed easily by the body. There is also iron in pulses, dried fruit, green leafy vegetables, nuts and seeds. The iron in these foods is not so easily absorbed by the body."

Lindsay Allen, of UC Davis, brewed a storm with the vegetarians when her study on Kenyan children found that "adding as little as two spoonfuls of meat a day to their starch-based diets dramatically improved muscle development and mental skills". The shit hit the fan when she commented "there’s absolutely no question that it’s unethical for parents to bring up their children as strict vegans" because of the dire consequences of such a choice on their health (born small, grow very slowly and are developmentally retarded, possibly permanently). Yes, the study was on poor children–i.e. probably those with the smallest ecological footprint and no means of importing exotic plants to meet their nutritional demands–but it showed dramatic changes in the children given the meat, and to a lesser extent the milk or oil. This guardian article goes over both sides of the question rather well.

A number of studies have shown that Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA, found in found primarily in the meat and dairy products of ruminants) increases lean tissue and is an anti-carcinogen.

The author of the AlterNet article seems happy to ignore these and all the studies that have found eating meat to be more efficient (e.g 3 ounce serving of beef contains as much iron as 3 cups of spinach and it is more easily absorbed) and potentially healthful if done right (e.g. the Japanese diet, which includes lots of fish and meat, somehow leads to the highest life expectancy in the world).

In the end, we could go on all day finding studies which show great properties of meat-including diets and others showing the dangers of the same. The difference between these is a question of what and how much… there are distinct benefits related to eating certain meats and this almost faith-based approach that states "all meat is bad" or the lesser "nothing good comes out of eating meat", which you simply can’t question without being a treated like a right-wing, redneck dimwit is really narrow minded and annoying.

The only remaining point is that of animal cruelty. First off, the whole political incorrectness of eating meat embodied by the "meat is murder" catch phrase really gets to me. Murder is normally defined somewhere along the lines of "unlawful killing of a human being by a human being". The restriction to intra-human killing is evident to any fluent english speaker, as no one would say "Jeff was murdered" if he were eaten by a tiger.

If you take "human" out of the definition, eating cows still isn’t murder because it isn’t unlawful. If you then take "unlawful" out of the definition, you’re left with the "killing of a being by a being" as the definition of murder–in which case, you’re guilty when you eat a potato. So it’s a catchy phrase but doesn’t make sense and is, in my opinion, disingenuous.

The short version is that life feeds on life and that ain’t murder. That doesn’t mean we have to be cruel. So what is the difference between plants and animals in this context? It is the capacity to feel and appreciate pain. Animals have a greater capacity for this than plants, obviously. But the thing is, some animals have more than others. Single cell organisms… uhm,not so much. Bugs, hardly. Bigger, more complex, brains: more capacity for pain. And we, as humans, top the list in my opinion. Thus, I’m a lot more interested in ending human suffering–for this reason and, yes, just because they are my closest kin–first. Then maybe we can talk about chimps, and cows, and the rest.

I actually do have a solution to the whole cruelty aspect and some of the health concerns… we just need to stop using animals as our source of meat. I can envision a turkey plantation, where turkey breasts are grown in vats (powered by hydro-electricity/solar energy) and nourished by recycled waste. Many people think the idea of tissue farms are disgusting but we could make the meat as healthy as we like (lean, omega-3 packed etc.), have a smaller footprint (ecological and geographical) than traditional farms (both animal and plant) and avoid inflicting any pain (since we won’t waste any time/energy growing brains). If it turned out to be more ecologically friendly than growing plants and artificial hormone/saturated fat free would you be willing to switch to test-tube-turkey and vat-veal?

I’ve never had a profound love of taxis, whose drivers seem to think their special permit comes with a host of privileges not accorded to the mundane little people the rest of us are. Optional use of flashers, reckless driving, using horns as a form of speech, urinating on the buildings adjacent to taxi stands–these rights and many more are magically granted once you get that cab driver permit.

But what motivated me to write this was an advert I saw proclaiming that using a taxi is environmentally friendly. The gall.

True, using taxis may reduce the number of cars in circulation. But the environment doesn’t much care about how many cars there are, it’s all about how much they get used (i.e. burn fuel).

I have a propensity for living next to taxi queues, and I can attest that–at least here–these vehicles are always on. The taxi stand next to this place has a capacity for 8 cabs (so there are usually about 12 hanging around) and their engines run and run and run. For the radio, the air conditioning, the heating… for the pure joy of hearing the engine purr. I don’t know why, exactly, but these things run 24 hours a day. We passed a law requiring them to shut the cars down. Seems it doesn’t apply if you’ve got that permit.

If those 12 cabs were replaced by 100 cars, those 100 would still be parked most of the day and hence not be filling the air with hyrdrocarbon residues. Yes, it would make the parking situation worse. But that is a good thing, from the environmental perspective–the more terrible parking gets, the more people will give up their cars and using public transit. We have an awesome subway system, and you never need to fill the meter.

So, thanks to their insolent and false advertising, I’ve decided cabs are off my list of possibilities–even if I’m running late. The earth will thank me later.

Here is my confession: newly single, I decided to give online dating a try. Oh my!

To be clear, I’ll admit I haven’t given it a fair chance (haven’t tried much and since I refuse to actually give pimps any cash, I only went to various free sites) but I don’t think I’ll be doing any more "research"–ugh!

My main rant is the astounding number of impersonal personals you come upon. E.g.

• "I never know what to write in these things." Why not start with "This is the first sentence" Useless verbiage.
• "I’m good looking." Uh, is that ISO-2006 good looking or are you sticking with the ANSI standard? This is so relative that a bit more detail might just be helpful…
• "I like music." Arg, can’t you at least specify a type if not a few bands?! Same goes for movies, books or whatever.
• "I like to have fun." My personal all-time favorite, a rare and unique trait–highly distinctive: you’re my type of gal, fer sure. Gaah!

The real kicker is the sheer amount of misrepresentation. If the goal is to actually meet someone in person, how does one expect to pull off all that BS? It just makes me wonder if these people really believe all that crap about themselves. I sure hope not…

The moral of the story is that if you:

• were born after 1981;
• don’t deviate from the norm by more that 2% in any manner;
• enjoy pop culture, pop music and pop everything;
• are ready to say whatever it takes to make another person like you.

Then you’ll probably have resounding success as an online dater. Otherwise, enter at your own peril.

Yes, I know I just sound bitter. I guess I might be… I thought it would be an easy way to hookup with that feeble percentage of people I really get along with but, alas, they are elsewhere.

In any case, there are so many variables involved in this type of interpersonal relationship that I’ve always trusted my senses and brain to pick up the subtle cues, ranging from body language and pheromones to verbal skills and philosophy, and perform the integration for me. This simply isn’t possible online, where your mind has a tendency to make up the missing pieces of the puzzle, often with idealized fantasies and the associated dire consequences.

I’ll be sticking with real life, going outside and doing stuff I like and will just see what happens. For those who are still game to give it a shot, you can check out these free sites:

• OKCupid. A nice system, with profiles and a pretty awesome matching algorithm (provided you take the time to honestly answer a number of questions). Young and superficial crowd.
• Plenty of Fish. An ugly site, which seems to attract the downtroden.
• Craig’s List. Mainly brief descriptions, no profiles and often no pics… lots of scams and spammers

Enjoy and good luck.

I am appalled and disgusted by the recent attacks by Israel on Lebanon. For the first time I am leaning towards the position that Israel has no place in the middle-east, other than that of a general shit-disturber and destabilizer, and should just go away (or at least, cease getting such boundless support from the civilized world).

I am also extremely disappointed with the Harper government, putting Canadians a the position which supports this unwarranted attack (more than 300 civilian deaths to date–supposedly in retaliation for *two* professional soldiers: insanity!) against a sovereign nation, thanks to its unending U.S./Bush ass kissing.

I invite all Canadians to write the Prime Minister’s office (pm AT pm dot gc dot ca) and to speak out publicly so the world will know we’re not as stupid as the (minority) government that supposedly represents us.

Here is a letter, written by Helene, that might be useful to all the frenchophones out there.

---

Monsieur Harper,

Vous avez la responsabilité, en tant que le chef d’un état *souverain* et civilisé, de condamner les bombardements au Liban.

Le Québec et le Canada ont exprimé leur opposition à la politique américaine en Irak et au Moyen-Orient. En tant que représentant d’une société démocratique, vous avez le devoir de parler pour la majorité des canadiens.

En tant qu’être humain responsable, vous avez l’obligation de défendre les droits et les valeurs fondamentaux de tous contre les intérêts de quelques individus.

Les actes présentement commis sont terribles et scandaleux. Ne devenez pas un criminel dont les méfaits resteront inscrits à jamais dans notre mémoire collective, comme le président Bush le sera sans doute.

Monsieur Harper, rendez-nous notre fierté: condamnez fermement les bombardements au Liban.

Agissez en canadien.

I’ve got a certain domain that for various reason (well, ok, mainly laziness) has a catch-all address setup. This means that any email you write to some randomschmuck@example.com will wind up in my inbox.

Of late, this has meant an increase in spam that is hovering just below the level at which I’ll actually get typing and do something about it. In the meantime, I’ve been getting a number of phishing scam emails, pretending to be from ebay, paypal and other places that might be likely repositories of my considerable wealth.

Of course, these messages usually get marked as junk by Thunderbird and always end up reported to SpamCop but before I trash them I try to take the time and be a real phisherman’s phriend.

Thanks to the magic of automation and cheap bandwidth, these scammers send out millions of these messages in the hopes of catching those remaining gullible folks that still click on spam, actually buy stuff from informercials, fall for Nigerian scams and generally make the world a sadder place. However, this can work to our advantage: there are millions of us and only a handful of scammers… Ergo, we can perform a distributed denial of service of our own.

In the time it takes to fill a form or two, you can bask in the warmth of the knowledge that you’ve wasted a scammers time and/or resources. How? Just click on that link! By apparently giving the phisher what he’s after and filling that form with bogus information, you can guarantee that his hand wringing and evil laughter will soon turn to anguish–at the very least annoyance.

Part of the art of being a true phisherman’s phriend is knowing what to enter. Don’t just put in random values… sometimes the form will repeat itself to validate your data, so you need to remember what you put in. More importantly, you can use this as an opportunity to make a statement by choosing to enter information based on someone you’d like to see, let’s say, more motivated to effect change in this area. Government officials/congress men and women/senators can all be good choices. So are high ranking police officers, for instance someone from the US Attorney’s office CyberCrime Task Force or the RCMP.

In addition to some fake paypal, ebay or whatever login info, you’ll usually be asked for some credit card data. Make sure you:

• Don’t enter any real information (doh!),
• Enter fake info that actually passes muster.

Credit cards have in-built checksums, so only certain numbers are in fact valid. If you’ve got a computer that can run Perl, such as pretty much any Linux machine, then you can download this small credit card generator script and create your own or just do a quick search.

The only things you need to be wary of are:

• Browser autocomplete: you probably want to avoid saving this junk in your browser,
• Malicious code: avoid using inherently unsafe browsers, such as Internet Explorer (IE),
  when accessing a phishing site (you don’t want a free gift to linger after your done, now).
  Go with Firefox instead, for example, and you might
  consider turning off Javascript anyway.
• Tell your friends to do the same but maybe keep your mom or other non-savvy users from playing
  with this. We want to avoid any confusion…

Share this page and turn your friends into phriends! We may yet get rid of this type of annoyance

There are two kinds of end-users who regularly interact with Microsoft products. There are the muggles who can sometimes or usually get by but will call upon a knowledgeable niece, neighbor or friend to get them out of the occasional problem they can’t seem to solve. And then there are the nieces and nephews, neighbors, friends and coworkers that devote a portion of their time fixing up the muggle PCs: installing drivers, installing anti-viruses, getting rid of spyware, setting up networks and printers and the like.

Towering above the IT world, Microsoft’s dominance is assured by an army of volunteer workers: people who devote their knowledge, time and energy to the mega-corp without a thought towards compensation. Here I’d like to address the members of that army.

On the surface, going over to Dad’s place to help setup his email or get rid of the latest W32BlastMyWhatever worm is the decent thing to do. After all, it would take him forever to figure out, while you already know the ins and outs of the system and should be able to fix it in 20 minutes (this usually turns into one hour but, hey, whatever). The problem is that by doing so, the support-volunteer that you’ve become is upholding an entire system, one that’s become a foundation of the MS empire.

By devoting your Sunday afternoons to MS-related tech support, you are perpetuating this system and lending credence to a number of insidious myths. The most important of which are:

• Myth 1: Microsoft’s operating system and applications are intuitive and easy to use.
  If this is true, why are you always getting these desperate cries for help from everyone and their uncle?
• Myth 2: Microsoft products are backed by a solid company and well supported.
  How many people do you know that have actually called MS tech support (no, calling their ISP doesn’t count unless it was an actual network problem)? Of those in the limited number that have, how many actually resolved their problems? How many of those got it done for free, as part of the support included with their product?

You aren’t alone in this: there are likely millions in the same position, devoting countless man-hours to upholding the status quo and keeping Microsoft coffers full. The influence of this monopoly is so great that even hardware vendors (creating drivers and configuration programs) and ISPs (fielding tons of unrelated "my ‘puter don’t work" calls), are effectively working for Microsoft for free in order to satisfy their user base. These corporations don’t have much choice, considering that doing anything else will alienate their dependent users–sending them elsewhere. You, on the other hand, do.

My own father, at 75 years, isn’t about to learn much about a system’s internals or configuring a wireless network. No matter what, I’ll still need to occasionally help out. The question becomes: how can my technical savvy benefit my entourage the most. My experience has shown that opting for a better solution both reduces the number of support calls I need to field and shrinks the time it takes for me to actually get any snags resolved.

To date, this better solution has been setting up Linux systems. This has worked for my father, for the furnished apartments my mother provides for short-term leasing and many others.

With Linux desktop systems, down-time is next to nothing, viruses pretty much non-existent. All the applications these people need are available in free packages with familiar interfaces, the main ones being:

• Firefox, for browsing;
• Thunderbird, for email;
• OpenOffice, for word processing and spreadsheet work;
• Gaim, for instant messaging through AOL, MSN and jabber
• Gimp, for image manipulation

Another advantage is that, so long as the network is still functional, I can do any work through an SSH connection and this includes running graphical applications, such as Thunderbird to mess around with email settings, etc.

If you are one of us–the real front-line workers–those that everyone calls when they can’t figure out what to do next, then I encourage you to consider installing Linux. Start with the most clueless of your unofficial clientele: I’ve found they are most open as any operating system is as wondrous a mystery as the next to them and the learning curves are identical. You can have them try out one of the commitment-free Live CD distributions, such as Knoppix, to avoid any "where’s my windows??" freak-outs.

The advantages of converting your entourage to Linux are many, and include:

• Reducing support requirements (number of calls);
• Reducing support time (quicker resolution, remote management);
• Freeing your users from headaches (virii, spyware, etc.) and illegality (warez,
  unregistered or cracked commercial apps);
• Avoiding doing volunteer work for a huge corporation and instead investing those hours into making the world a bit more free;
• Hearing yourself say: "Microsoft Windows? Sorry, we don’t support that."

If you haven’t tried Linux out yourself, head over to Knoppix or Ubuntu and download one of the ISO files–just burn it to a CD, reboot into Linux and see for yourself!

For anyone familiar with Unix, the shell (command line prompt) is an addiction worth maintaining. Once you get over the initial learning curve, it is usually the quickest and easiest way to gain intel and solve problems on a web server. But, when it comes to shell access, many web hosting companies suffer from split personalities: on one hand they’ll refuse to grant SSH access while on the other they will let any of their clients upload executable code (CGI programs and PHP scripts) without a second thought.

This foolish behavior is rooted in the myth that shell access is used by “hackers” (by this, they actually mean “crackers”, i.e. a hacker with malicious intent) whereas CGI/PHP is seen as a tolerable threat. This is nonsense:

1. There are more positive uses of the shell than negative, on a well maintained host;
2. As an unprivileged user, you only have access to your own home directory and files;
3. The webserver process, by definition, runs as a particular users – one that must be
   able to access directories for all the users with websites on the system;
4. A script run by the webserver has the privileges of the webserver user, and has potentially
   greater access than anything you could run as another user.

There are exceptions to the above, such as ways to restrict webserver or script permissions (e.g. Mandatory Access Control, or PHP “safe mode"), but in general today the hosting company will bar ssh access and provide full webserver privileges to any random script. This quickly becomes annoying.

To get around this hindrance and actually manage to get things done, we’ve created and released PHPsh – web based shell access for webservers. From the PHPsh homepage:

PHPsh is:

• A simplified version of sh or the bash shell, that allows you to execute arbitrary commands, remotely, through PHP
• A handy way to run simple commands and maintain a history of executed commands
• A helpful environment that allows you to browse the filesystem and fetch or upload files
• PHPsh is freely available for personal or professional use

If you would like shell access to a webserver but are stuck with FTP, then try it out. There are a few conditions on its use but PHPsh is free!

Enjoy

Software is all around us. The most blatant examples are those programs we’ve wilfully created and that permeate modern society: from computer programs that fetch email to those running on controllers embedded in cars and traffic lights and toaster ovens.

I love programming–the act of creating this software–but must admit that it is still the most dull and primitive example of programs.

A program is an information processor. It reacts to information that comes in from the external environment according to a combination of preset rules, current state and, in some cases, previously stored information. A software’s reaction to input is to affect the environment in some way–in the most simple case, by outputting new information.

Following this, you can view any earth-born living organism as a well-debugged program, written in the language of DNA. A termite senses its environment, be it through touch (tactile input), smell (input from chemical sensors) or other input pathways. If conditions are right and the termites are homeless (state), they will each perform small sequences of actions that affect the environment (output) which in turn affects what they see (input) and their current state, in a feedback loop.

The end result of this function in the termite program is an organized, emergent collaborative behaviour that impacts the landscape in important ways, creating towering structures that can last many years.

In the end this and all other termite behaviours are subroutines of a larger program, whose ultimate goal is the creation of more termites.

This is a common theme to all organism programs. Any programs that didn’t include a replication mechanism stayed with a single copy in the world. No matter how great, given enough time, that single copy is doomed to get hit by lightning, drown in a river, get used for spare parts by another (i.e. eaten) or meet some other demise–bringing the number of copies in existence back down to zero.

Even in cases where the program has some resilience built in through redundancy, it is also eventually doomed to extinction if replication isn’t its first priority. In the fierce zero-sum game of wildlife, if your program devotes energy to any other goal, a more focused replicator will inevitably find some wiggle room in your niche, increasing its numbers at your expense until a tipping point is reached and the number of your copies falls to zero.

The point is that all behaviour can be seen as the output of the massively parallel computations performed by each cell by reading the DNA program. Some may feel that this view is limiting and doesn’t fully explain the human experience. For some cases, such as seemingly elaborate behaviour or counter-intuitive examples like intra-species cooperation, pure “pre-programmed by DNA” evolutionary models do suffice (for instance, see Dawkins’ excellent The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype). In other cases, such as obviously self destructive behaviour, I agree–the DNA program view is insufficient. The interesting thing, however, is that the “replicating program” explanation does manages to describe these if you take into account the fact that what differentiates humans from most (if not all) other organisms on this planet is that they support two distinct programs that sometimes have conflicting interests: genes and memes (self-propagating units of cultural evolution).

Though they follow the basic replicator "law"–replicate with as much fecundity, longevity and fidelity as you can muster or face extinction–memes are different than (most) genes. They can be stored outside of biological hosts, in inanimate retention systems such as books, only to be re-animated on contact with a suitable brain (somewhat like dormant anthrax spores in soil). They can travel horizontally (between brains of the same generation, like viruses). They are extremely quick, easy and inexpensive to duplicate (like computer software, MP3s and other digital content).

It is our collective memes that have allowed the creation of the super-organisms that exist in human minds and the space in between we call society, whose "bodies" are composed human individuals and their behaviours, like governments and the scientific community and parent-teacher associations and religious sects and the fast food giants and so many others.

The human individuals that comprise these bodies are essential but, like skin cells, highly replaceable. Many of these super-organisms are self assembling–an idea spreads and is refined, bringing people together for mutual benefit or whatever reasons make the meme successful. Some, like systems of government, are so important to us that we’ve encoded the program regulating their behaviour: we’ve taken those meme complexes and set them down as law.

A corporation, from corpus (representing a "body of people"), is a group of people authorized to act as an individual set up in accordance with a governmental framework. It is an important example of these memeplex-derived super-organisms. Corporations, in most cases, are setup with the increase of shareholder value as their prime objective. In the words of the Indian Head Mill Co. manual:

The objective of our company is to increase the intrinsic value of our common stock. We are not in business to grow bigger for the sake of size, nor to become more diversified, nor to make the most or best of anything, nor to provide jobs, have the most modern plants, the happiest customers, lead in new product development, or to achieve any other status which has no relation to the economic use of capital. Any or all of these may be, from time to time, a means to our objective, but means and ends must never be confused. We are in business solely to improve the inherent value of the common stockholders’ equity in the company

Whether this interpretation has force of law or not is debatable. But many companies operate under the assumption that this is the case or at least that it is their sole or primary responsibility. Under these circumstances, what any rational person would view as inappropriate behaviour makes perfect sense.

When a corporation drains common resources like water or strains shared infrastructure like roads to reduce costs it is only obeying its prime directive. That a company should decide to dump toxic waste into rivers while including the eventual fines as part of their cost of doing business, is justified so long as it increases shareholder value. When a company shifts operating costs to other sectors of society, leaving us to pick up the tab for health problems due to their activities, crime stemming from increased poverty, loss of quality of life from noise, pollution and destruction of the environment, we can only blame ourselves for programming them to do it. Companies, as they currently operate, a completely self-centered, shortsighted and unsustainable. They will eventually self destruct, if only after killing the last people on the planet.

Environmental protection, laws regulating the welfare of employees, special taxes (when they actually have to pay them) are all well-intentioned but inefficacious band-aids over the deeper problem. From the corporation’s point of view, it is its responsibility to use influence and cunning to bypass these measures by any means. The only complete and permanent solution is to rewrite the corporate DNA and change the basic programs that direct their actions.

Fundamentally, we need to change the laws which regulate companies in order to reprogram them such that they act in accordance with our longterm interests, instead of plodding on with a world view that dates back to a time when the planet and its inhabitants were seen as a store of infinite resources ripe for the picking. Changing our ideas about the role of corporations means supplanting one set of memes with another–like other organisms, you can expect the corporate memeplex to resist and fight back. But it is possible.

Is there anything you can do to make this happen? How do you fight a well entrenched meme, one that has backing from an established power structure? Is this all true and should you even try? Here are my suggestions and experience concerning the issue.

Observe and understand

Don’t take my word for it: see for yourself. Try to abstract away the people who form a company and see it as an independent organism. Don’t jump to blame the CEO of a company when it misbehaves, though he may be fired in disgrace–the reason this type of behaviour is endemic to corporate culture is the environment which fashions corporate evolution, the rules under which we have collectively decided to require companies to operate.

Think about it

Spend some time actually thinking about the issue for yourself. Corporation are memeplexes–they only exist within our brains, in our agreed upon and shared mindspace. How we see them and what they do isn’t wholly independent of us, of our opinions and actions. So what you think is important–spend a little time figuring it out.

Talk about it

Because corporations and other social bodies only exist within the shared consensus, discussing the issues openly really can have an impact. Talk about it, bring it up during supper, link to this page, write about it yourself–get other rational human beings thinking about it. Leaving it in the dark, or up to some vague "others", can’t help and will likely just allow the situation to worsen. Bringing it to light offers hope and will eventually lead to real ideas and plans that can get us out of this collective bind.

We are in control and can act now

You can petition the government for change, I wouldn’t expect any major change from above in the very near future–there is a certain lack of motivation, as governments and corporations often live in symbiosis. Though we are but cells in the global organism, corporations themselves are only components of the social "superplex", acting like faulty or cancerous organs poisoning the rest of the body.We can affect positive change.

You needn’t be afraid to take a stand, now. Though doing so might engender positive mental consequences–such as pride, moral contentment or social rapprochement–you can expect straightforward health and material benefits from changing your mindset and making the decision to take a stand.

When I co-founded Psychogenic.com–an Information Technology consulting firm–in 2000, we were lucky to be small and nimble enough to make a fresh start. As a corporate entity, we made a commitment to our clients, partners and to society at large.

Our commitment to clients is that we will offer our abilities and experience not only to meet their needs but to empower them to grow and become not just better, but actually "more". To our staff and partners, we have committed to provide a positive and nurturing environment, where they can grow, learn and be fulfilled through work they are passionate about. These two groups are classical stakeholders and are, under many management philosophies, considered important enough to account for. This just makes economic sense: happy clients and employees simply provide better returns.

Though we may sometimes be a bit more extreme in our dedication to human resources and clients, our key management difference lies in our commitment to the rest of the world. We will not support destructive or parasitic activities directly, by creating tools for such uses, or indirectly by working to sustain the functions of companies that are working against our global interests. We strive towards creating tools that add real value to the world. We contribute to the commons–the shared knowledge base that belongs to everybody–by creating and contributing to free (as in freedom) open source software projects.

This has lead to numerous benefits, ranging from an enjoyable work environment to widespread recognition. The clients we accept are generally more enjoyable to work with, are more than willing to compensate us fairly and have a tendency to come back for more and refer others to us.

If you own or direct a company, you can take steps to establish a clear set of commitments to your stakeholders and society at large. If you are an employee at a firm, you can voice your opinions and clear the way to a different, more sustainable, work ethic that benefits the company and the world in which it operates. You can refuse to cooperate with harmful behaviour.

How did King and Gandhi manage to effect widespread social change? Their methods were nonviolent and directed straight at the basis of power–which crumbles when the oppressed refuse to see their rulers as legitimate and to cooperate. The same holds for all consensus-bound organization. You can rewrite the corporate program, simply by rewriting it in your own mind: if we refuse to participate, they disappear.

Copyright © 2005 Pat Deegan
All Rights Reserved

I set up a mailing list for interested members of our extended family. It’s a place where holiday plans are discussed and minor flame wars sometimes erupt. I had the pleasure of starting one myself recently, in response to a message from my uncle. For those who can’t read french, especially my homegrown accent-free version that google seems to have difficulty translating, well… sorry translating this would be too much work but you can get a lot from the various english quotes.

The email I recieved containd this quote from some book by Philippe Roth:

On lutte contre sa propre superficialité, son manque de profondeur, pour essayer d’arriver devant autrui sans attente irréaliste, sans cargaison de préjugés, d’espoirs, d’arrogance; on ne veut pas faire le tank, on laisse son canon, ses mitrailleuses et son blindage; on arrive devant autrui sans le menacer, on marche pieds nus sur ses dix orteils au lieu d’écraser la pelouse sous ses chenilles; on arrive l’esprit ouvert, pour l’aborder d’égal à égal, d’homme à homme, comme on disait jadis. Et, avec tout ça, on se trompe à tous les coups. Comme si on n’avait pas plus de cervelle qu’un tank. On se trompe avant même de rencontrer les gens, quand on imagine la rencontre avec eux; on se trompe quand on est avec eux; et puis quand on rentre chez soi, et qu’on raconte la rencontre à quelqu’un d’autre, on se trompe de nouveau. Or, comme la réciproque est généralement vraie, personne n’y voit que du feu, ce n’est qu’illusion, malentendu qui confine à la farce. Pourtant, comment s’y prendre dans cette affaire si importante—–les autres —– qui se vide de toute la signification que nous lui supposons et sombre dans le ridicule, tant nous sommes mal équipés pour nous représenter le fonctionnemet intérieur d’autrui et ses mobiles cachés? Est-ce qu’il faut pour autant que chacun s’en aille de son côté, s’enferme dans sa tour d’ivoire, isolée de tout bruit, comme les écrivains solitaires, et fasse naître les gens à partir des mots, pour postu ler ensuite que ces êtres de mots sont plus vrais que les vrais, que nous massacrons tous les jours par notre ignorance? Le fait est que comprendre les autres n’ est pas la règle, dans la vie. L’histoire de la vie, c’est de se tromper sur leur compte, encore et encore, encore et toujours, avec acharnement et, après y avoir bien réfléchi, se tromper à nouveau. C’est même comme ça qu’on sait qu’on est vivant: on se trompe. Peut-être que le mieux serait de renoncer à avoir tort ou raison sur autrui, et continuer rien que pour la balade. Mais si vous y arrivez, vous? alors vous avez de la chance.

My response, which it seems I felt was worth sticking here, is included forthwith.

J’imagine que je me suis tromper, et que ton but n’etait pas d’inciter une tirade de ma part… mais la voici neanmoins

Bon, que ceux et celles qui sont pas ben ben intelligent levent la main!

J’imagine (j’espere!) qu’il n’y a pas eu trop de volontaire. Le fait est que la plus part des gens se croit ben smatte.

“Unfortunately, your self-perceived excellence makes you remarkably ordinary: In general, psychologists have found, whether the category is driving skills, looks, intelligence, or charm, people rank themselves above average, usually substantially above. In one typical study, 70 percent of high school students reported that they possessed better-than-average leadership ability, while only 2 percent thought they were below average. In another, 94 percent of professors said their own scholarship was better than the norm.” (The Power of Positive Illusions)

Cette tendance n’est pas negative–c’est une adaptation utile. L’explication simple, c’est que la vie est remplie de “non-zero sum games” (des scenarios ou l’on gagne a cooperer)–voir: Memes & Cooperation – et que pour des animaux sociaux etre confiant c’est utile. Dans The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins decrit la co-evolution de plusieurs mechanism en utilisant un exemple simple. Trois individus se veulent chef de notre tribu. Le premier dit “franchement, je ne crois pas qu’on va s’en tirer”. Le deuxieme recherche le gain personnel et tente de fourrer tout le monde avec des promesses vides. Le troisieme croit franchement qu’il est le meilleur choix pour diriger la tribu pour le bien de tous.

Les tribus qui choissent un defaitist se tire dans le pied. En 1532, Francisco Pizarro et 168 hommes plante une armee de 80,000 Peruviens, entre autre parce-qu’il avait l’audace de croire en leurs capacitees. Le chef qui n’est pas sure de lui sera en moins bonne sante mentale (Positive Illusions: Creative Self-Deception and the Healthy Mind et sera moins enclin a prendre des risques pour le bien de tout le monde (Overconfidence and War : The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions).

Les desavantages du deuxieme choix sont evidents et nos expressions faciale, universelles et innees (The Inner and Outer Meanings of Facial Expressions), sont la preuve que dans cet univers de “non-zero sum” il est en general plus profitable de pouvoir se comprendre que de pouvoir cacher ses propre pensees. Il y a eue, et se poursuit, une “arms race” entre les menteurs et les detecteurs de mensonges mais l’important c’est que nous cherchons a deceler la tromperie volontaire chez les autres et agissons en consequence quand nous la detectons. Tous ca, c’est suffisant pour qu’il y ai une pression contre la selection de leaders menteurs (cyniques et autres, inserer commentaires sur Paul Martin ici).

Le troisieme chef potentiel croit scincerement en lui-meme. Il se trompe probablement, mais ce n’est pas important. Le fait est, par l’inverse des arguments a l’encontre du chef defaitist, qu’il est avantageux pour la tribu de se choisir un chef un peu trop confiant.

Par ce mechanism, avec le temps, la tendance au illusions positives se repend a travers le pool genetique et la culture.

C’est ben beau tout ca mais: “rapport, man?”. Le rapport c’est qu’on est tous mauditement pareil, le “self-perceived excellence” n’est qu’un example.

“Chimpanzees share 99.4 percent of functionally important DNA with humans and belong in our genus, Homo, according to a recent genetic study” (Study: Chimps Belong In Human Genus). Quoique tout le monde n’est pas d’accord avec cette conclusion, le fait est que les chimpanze on 95-99.X % de similarite genetique avec nous.

A l’interieur de cette petite difference genetique entre nous et les chimpanze, il faut coder pour deux choses:

A) Code Genetique Chimp.
+ 0
————————
chimpanze

B) Code Genetique Chimp.
+ une steppette pour devenir humain
+ un grain de sel pour devenir un individu
——————————————
toi

La difference entre individus, quoique bien importante pour nous, est infime–du moins du point de vue genetique. Donc, y a-t-il une grosse difference entre les individus malgre leurs similitude biologique?

La lecon de notre epoque sur cette question est que le “Social Science Standard Model”–avec son idee que le cerveau humain est une tabula rasa ou le software de la culture est inscrit par apprentissage (A Rising Stare: Evolutionary Psychology)–se met le doigt dans l’oeil.

Un bon exemple est fourni par Steven Pinker (un livre excellent: The Language Instinct : How the Mind Creates Language) qui decrit l’evolution et le fonctionnement des circuit grammatical chez l’humain (voir Natural Language And Natural Selection pour une bonne intro). Il n’est simplement pas possible pour un humain d’apprendre *n’importe quel* language, arbitrairement concue. Les ‘variables’, telles que la prononciation des mots, peuvent bien etre n’importe quoi mais la constance de la structure de la langue et la facon que les concepts sont organiser sont ce qui permet a l’enfant d’apprendre a parler et a tout le monde de se comprendre efficacement.

Une conclusion qu’on retire de la psychologie evolutionnaire est que l’esprit humain n’est pas une machine a calculer generale, comme un ordinateur, mais plutot une collection de module specialiser, adapter pour des taches distincte–coder des la conception par nos genes et commun a tous les humains. Bien des differences que l’on percoit, comme celles entre les langues, ne sont qu’une tres mince couche par-dessus une vaste fondation universelle (supporte par ces modalite neural). Il existe une grammaire universel, fondee dans la biologie humaine, et on realise qu’il existe un peuple universel–l’evolution nous a fournis une batch de modules qui s’occupe d’une grande part de notre pensee, de notre perception et interaction avec le monde.

Oui, on peut quand meme se tromper… et pas seulement sur les motifs specifique qui pousse X a faire Y. Le fait est que l’etre humain n’a aucune experience directe de l’univers. Nous sommes enferme dans nos cranes respectifs et tous nous vient par l’entremise de nos sens–quand je fais une tournee du musee, je suis en fait en train de me promener dans mon cortex visuel. Les trois conclusions possible sont:

1) Il n’y a rien, tout n’est qu’illusion.

2) J’existe, mais je ne sais rien du tout concernant le monde exterieur avec certitude (demon de Descartes)

3) Il y a un monde exterieur objectif, et une certaine correspondance entre cet univers et ma representation.

Les point 1 et 2 sont bien zen et meme possible, mais completement inutile a considerer (jusqu’a ce que le “vrai” univers nous soit revele, du moins).

Pour le 3, la correspondance entre l’univers et ma representation interne peut diverger… ce n’est pas important ici. Ce qui compte, dans ce cas, c’est que :

- J’existe
- Vous existez
- Nous avons tous une representation de l’univers
- Notre representation de l’univers depend surtout des modalités sous-jacentes de notre cerveau
- Le hardware de nos cerveau est a peu pres identique, du moins en ce qui a attrait au module perceptifs, analytiques et fonctionnels.

Ergo, nous avons tous a peu pres le meme model du l’univers. On passe notre temps a se chicanner a propos de notre diversite d’opinon sur A,B et C mais le fait qu’on puisse meme en parler demontre notre similitude fondamentale.

Finalement, si je fais une grosse erreur c’est d’assumer que mon propre “stream of consciousness”, et par consequence celui dans la boite cranienne de “l’autre”, a un rapport quelconque avec “qui je suis”. Des etudes demontrent que la conscience n’est peu-etre qu’un echo, un “log” de ce que l’organisme a deja decide sans intervention consciente. Selon ce model, on se raconte tous une histoire, qui rationalise nos actions et les ordonnes:

“consciousness appears to be a delayed log of your thoughts, a sort of reverberating echo of obnoxious memes, rather than being the actual process of thinking. Neuroscientists have done experiments asking people to press a button and to note what time it was when they pressed the button. Meanwhile, the scientists measured at what time the brain actually sent the irreversible signal to the hand to press the button. Can you guess how it turned out?

The signal left the brain before the person reported thinking about it.

In other words, the subconscious decided to press the button, and only then did the conscious mind report it dutifully in its log. ‘Have decided to press button.’ But like all logs, it is a historical recording of what was, not a live broadcast of what is. Your consciousness is always a bit behind what is actually happening.” (Cet extrait vient d’un petit article, issue du monde sportif, qui merite vraiment d’etre lu:
IN THE ZONE: Consciousness, Basketball, and Team Chemistry).

Mais bon, de facon pratique ce qui compte c’est que j’ai l’impression d’etre conscient et de prendre des decisions. Si c’est faux, ca ne change pas mon experience subjective. Et si vous existez vraiment en fin de compte, vous etes probablement pareil.

En gros je crois qu’on profiterait tous si on cessait de traiter “l’autre” comme un alien incomprehensible, surtout quand c’est un autre primate.

:-)