Synthstuff - music, photography and more...

Pirate Radio Station

Very cool story from the BBC about Raghav Mahato and his $1 FM radio station:
(DIY means do-it-yourself - ie: home built)

The amazing DIY village FM radio station
It may well be the only village FM radio station on the Asian sub-continent. It is certainly illegal.

The transmission equipment, costing just over $1, may be the cheapest in the world.

But the local people definitely love it.

On a balmy morning in India's northern state of Bihar, young Raghav Mahato gets ready to fire up his home-grown FM radio station.

Thousands of villagers, living in a 20km (12 miles) radius of Raghav's small repair shop and radio station in Mansoorpur village in Vaishali district, tune their $5 radio sets to catch their favourite station.

After the crackle of static, a young, confident voice floats up the radio waves.

“Good morning! Welcome to Raghav FM Mansoorpur 1! Now listen to your favourite songs,” announces anchor and friend Sambhu into a sellotape-plastered microphone surrounded by racks of local music tapes.

For the next 12 hours, Raghav Mahato's outback FM radio station plays films songs and broadcasts public interest messages on HIV and polio, and even snappy local news, including alerts on missing children and the opening of local shops.

Raghav and his friend run the indigenous radio station out of Raghav's thatched-roof Priya Electronics Shop.

Screw trying to get internet to these areas (there are some people spending a lot of effort working on cheap small internet terminals), simple old radio is much more cost-effective and carries the programming that people really want.

We should be drop-shipping hundreds of small FM stations to India, China (the government would just love us…), Iran, Iraq, South America. Leave them in the hands of the people and see what happens.

Here is Sambhu the DJ and Announcer:

A quick word to commenters

When you post a comment, it shows up even if you don't see it immediately.

I offer as a classic example these thirteen identical comments delivered over a 19 minute period by a Mr. Henry A Albagli. Here is the comment repeated once, unedited for your edification:

this is going to sound crazy but read this with an open mind. to begin i will say ive seen ufo's twice, the first time was in the early 1980's, i was driving my truck at about 8 pm, i was traveling towards the san gabriel mountains.just outside of los angeles in calif. when out of the sky fell a white circular light, it seemed ''out of control'' looking like a ball in a pin ball machine, going from left to right, right to left, up and down and in all directions in between in lasted for about 15 seconds, i pulled to the side of the road and this circular light went straight up and disapeared, when i got back in my truck there was a circular light that appeared within a few feet from my truck, except this time it was very small maybe only a centameter or so, it was moving as if it was floating down ward, i got out of my truck and tried to let it fall into my hand but it seemed it just kept avoiding my hand like when two magnits are both negative they seem to push off each other, well i was memorized to say the least, i kept watching it and it landed on the grass, when it hit the grass the light turnrd into some kind of liquid light, it seemed it was a combination of water and maybe mercury or liquid silver, and it just stayed stationary in a circular form at the tip of a blade of grass. i went to touch it but when i was just to place my finger on it i started getting very cold at the same time the object started changing form again, it was now about 5 feet tall and about 2 feet wide,it looked like a ''mirage'' you know what you see in the desert from the heat rising up off the ground where you view is waves of distorted air, it seemed to now cover me and i coulden't move not a muscle when i tried the effect was more intence,then i saw something alive coming at me it was a light in the shape of centapede like bug, i felt it was tring to get me to relax and to just be calm, it was like trying to tell me something thats when i closed my eyes and felt it on my forehead starting to communicate with me, i dont remember much except these three things , 1)QUANTUM, 2)JENNY RENDAL and 3)PAUL McCARTNEY, at the time it made perfect sence, i remember thinking '' yes yes yes'' but when you ask me today what this means the only thing i can think of is ''im nuts'' after all out of the three things i remember the only one im familiar with is paul mccartney, heck i dont know maybe paul and jenny are going to have a baby and its name will be quantum and he will be the messiah but regardless how crazy this sounds i will swear on my eyes now that ufo's are out there and they are very inteligent. who ever can figure the meaning of jen ren, sir paul and quatum please tell me . thank you

The post that Mr. Albagli was commenting on was this: UFOs a waste of time

Here is a pictorial indication of Mr. Albagli's persistence as seen from my side of the blog:

And in some cases like this, it might be better just not to know.
Heh…

China, its economics and its people

A very interesting read on the current state of China and where it might be going.
From Foreign Policy

The Dark Side of China’s Rise
China’s economic boom has dazzled investors and captivated the world. But beyond the new high-rises and churning factories lie rampant corruption, vast waste, and an elite with little interest in making things better. Forget political reform. China’s future will be decay, not democracy.

The only thing rising faster than China is the hype about China. In January, the People’s Republic’s gross domestic product (GDP) exceeded that of Britain and France, making China the world’s fourth-largest economy. In December, it was announced that China replaced the United States as the world’s largest exporter of technology goods. Many experts predict that the Chinese economy will be second only to the United States by 2020, and possibly surpass it by 2050.

Western investors hail China’s strong economic fundamentals—notably a high savings rate, huge labor pool, and powerful work ethic—and willingly gloss over its imperfections. Businesspeople talk about China’s being simultaneously the world’s greatest manufacturer and its greatest market. Private equity firms are scouring the Middle Kingdom for acquisitions. Chinese Internet companies are fetching dot-com-era prices on the NASDAQ. Some of the world’s leading financial institutions, including Bank of America, Citibank, and HSBC, have bet billions on the country’s financial future by acquiring minority stakes in China’s state-controlled banks, even though many of them are technically insolvent. Not to be left out, every global automobile giant has built or is planning new facilities in China, despite a flooded market and plunging profit margins.

And why shouldn’t they believe the hype? The record of China’s growth over the past two decades has proved pessimists wrong and optimists not optimistic enough. But before we all start learning Chinese and marveling at the accomplishments of the Chinese Communist Party, we might want to pause for a moment. Upon close examination, China’s record loses some of its luster. China’s economic performance since 1979, for example, is actually less impressive than that of its East Asian neighbors, such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, during comparable periods of growth. Its banking system, which costs Beijing about 30 percent of annual GDP in bailouts, is saddled with nonperforming loans and is probably the most fragile in Asia. The comparison with India is especially striking. In six major industrial sectors (ranging from autos to telecom), from 1999 to 2003, Indian companies delivered rates of return on investment that were 80 to 200 percent higher than their Chinese counterparts. The often breathless conventional wisdom on China’s economic reform overlooks major flaws that render many predictions about China’s trajectory misleading, if not downright hazardous.

Behind the glowing headlines are fundamental frailties rooted in the Chinese neo-Leninist state. Unlike Maoism, neo-Leninism blends one-party rule and state control of key sectors of the economy with partial market reforms and an end to self-imposed isolation from the world economy. The Maoist state preached egalitarianism and relied on the loyalty of workers and peasants. The neo-Leninist state practices elitism, draws its support from technocrats, the military, and the police, and co-opts new social elites (professionals and private entrepreneurs) and foreign capital—all vilified under Maoism. Neo-Leninism has rendered the ruling Chinese Communist Party more resilient but has also generated self-destructive forces.

To most Western observers, China’s economic success obscures the predatory characteristics of its neo-Leninist state. But Beijing’s brand of authoritarian politics is spawning a dangerous mix of crony capitalism, rampant corruption, and widening inequality. Dreams that the country’s economic liberalization will someday lead to political reform remain distant. Indeed, if current trends continue, China’s political system is more likely to experience decay than democracy. It’s true that China’s recent economic achievements have given the party a new vibrancy. Yet the very policies that the party adopted to generate high economic growth are compounding the political and social ills that threaten its long-term survival.

The rest of the article is well worth reading. The next five or ten years should show if this is true or not.

Who is Ehud Olmert

Nice précis on who is running Israel while Ariel Sharon is incapacitated by a stroke.
From The Week

The Accidental Prime Minister
With Ariel Sharon incapacitated by a stroke, an untested Israeli leader faces a historic challenge as Hamas takes control of the Palestinian government. Who is Ehud Olmert?

Read and find out. From this article, it seems that he is the right person for this job. Was a raving right-wing but has mellowed a bit, been in politics for 30 years so he knows the ropes and was the architect behind the brilliant Gaza pullout.

My thoughts on the Gaza pullout is that it presents the “palestinians” with the opportunity to prove themselves worthy of statehood. They have a couple years to get their collective asses in gear and if they do not, Buh-Bye. If they DO, I am willing to bet that Israel will be more than happy to work with them.

Neighbors with differing views are to be celebrated; stuck-on-stupid terrorists are not. The clock is ticking…

Whoops! Sucks to be Behringer (again)

There is a German company - Behringer - that makes very cheap but reasonable quality commercial music and audio components. I have a few of their pieces and they work well.

They were the subject of a major lawsuit a few years ago when the copied several of Greg Makie's Mixer patented circuit designs, had them fabbed out in China and then proceeded to sell them at about half the price of the Makie units. The quality was a lot less — decent audio but very fragile components, easy to break.

Now it seems that they are in trouble again, this time with the FCC.
From Radio Magazine:

FCC Issues NAL Against Behringer for $1 Million
The FCC proposed a $1 million fine against Behringer USA for apparent violation of the FCC's equipment authorization rules. The Commission concluded that Behringer violated the FCC's rules by marketing in the United States at least 50 models of unauthorized digital audio devices. The rules require that these devices are tested and verified to be compliant with FCC technical standards prior to marketing them in the United States.

In proposing its forfeiture amount, the Commission considered that Behringer marketed the unauthorized devices for more than five years overall and for almost a year after it was on notice of the FCC's investigation, and that Behringer derived substantial financial gain from the sale of the unauthorized devices.

The equipment found to be in violation of the FCC rules includes audio processors, equalizers, mic preamps, sample-rate converters, mixers, amplifiers and lighting controllers.

Read the notice of apparent liability at hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-06-13A1.doc.

What this boils down to is that they made devices that had circuitry that operated in the same frequency ranges that commercial radio services use. When someone wants to make such a device and sell it in the USA, they need to have a certified Engineering lab test it and report that it doesn't emit enough of a signal to interfere with these services or cause any other unintended problems (pacemakers, etc…).

Uli Behringer decided not to do this and it turns out that his stuff lit up like a lightbulb. They were warned in 2004 but they still continued marketing the stuff to the US and they did not try to make any changes to limit this radiation.

No mention of this on their website — it will be interesting to see what of their products get pulled and re-introduced.

Some thoughts on buying a personal computer...

Reflecting on the previous post about the guy who bought the “biggest and bestest” machine he could afford, here are a few of my thoughts regarding buying a computer.

There are some instances where the “biggest and bestest” is justified. When I was working for MSFT, we had a few of these in our lab including this beauty:

The two cabinets on the right comprise a mainframe system that runs Windows. It is a Unisys ES-7000. 32 Xeon processors, 128 PCI slots, gobs of RAM and disk space. The cabinet on the right is just the control unit, #3 from the left is the CPU. #2 from the left is 35 or so Compaq 1U “pizza box” computers acting as load and #1 from the left is a fibre channel disk array.

The ES-7000 is perfect for a large business.
It costs over $2 Million.

The ES-7000 would be absolutely lousy for a home computer (even if you could get the three sets of 60 Amp 240 Volt electrical power to feed it). It took about 20 minutes to boot (and it was working hard!), it doesn't run video cards well (which CPU, what memory) and it doesn't even have a keyboard or mouse (all control is done through the #4 cabinet) but for pure exhilarating balls-to-the-wall server performance, it rocks! If you are Target or Barnes and Noble, you have several of these boxes sitting on the fattest internet pipe you can afford.

• Having a computer greatly aids your work.
• Computer performance doubles every 18 months (Moore's Law)
• Newer software will not run reliably on older systems.

And on to my thoughts.

What I look at is the price/performance curve. If you do not need absolute performance, if you are doing basic office stuff, some art, some music, some creative stuff but the bleeding edge $6K systems aren't something for you, take a look at this graph:

Click for full-size Image

Obviously, if you are cheap, you will not get any real performance. There are some basic costs for the sheet metal and the monitor, hard disk, etc… You are not buying any performance.

Where you want to be is at the knee to the right. There, you get a significant gain in performance without paying the penalty for being on the bleeding edge.

These days, this knee is right around $1,000 to $1,400. At this point, you will get a good solid system that will give you adequate performance for two years. If you use it for 20 hours/week, this works out to about a fifty cents an hour for the machine and after you are done, you still have a useful machine to donate to a non-profit or to sell for $200 or so or to give to someone who doesn't have a computer (go ahead, make their day!).

The key thing is not to buy the absolute best unless you have a legitimate need and then to understand that you will need to feed that need several times/year as improvements come out.

If you do not have the legitimate need, if you just need a basic decent system, plan on spending about $1,000 to $1,400 every two years.

This “knee” point used to be around $2,500 so things keep improving. It will probably drop to around $700 to $1,000 by December of this year.

A final thought. Retail markup is about 100% over wholesale in all but a few business. Computers is one of these. Markups used to be decent and when I had my first computer store, I made some decent money and sold some good computers to people at honest prices.

These days are long gone — the average markup now is less than 15%.

What this means to you as the consumer is that if someone is offering a system that looks good but is priced significantly lower than the other systems you are looking at, there is probably a very very good reason for this. Avoid these people like the plague.

When buying a computer, you do get what you pay for.

On the Bench

One of the things I do up here is run a computer repair business.
Generally lots of fun but today is not a good example.

I have a client with an old MAC computer — not just any MAC but one of the licensed clones made by Power Computing. The top of the line PowerTower Pro. He came into a bit of $$$ back in 1990's and splurged on the best system available at that time.

He brought it in with a dead power supply. I was able to find a new working exact replacement from these guys (story is here). Had some time today so started working on his system (he is on fixed income and specifically told me that it was OK to back-burner his machine — it had been dead for a while).

Tested the new supply — worked fine, voltages on spec.
Tested the old supply — dead as a dodo.
Put the new supply in, plugged it into the motherboard and pulled all of the PCI plugin cards — it powered up for a second and then shut down.

This means that the power supply is trying to provide the proper voltages but that the motherboard is not sending an OK signal back to the supply. Not a good thing.

I started poking around and finally tested the CMOS battery (a 3-volt lithium cell). Zero volts. Hmmm… Pulled it to test it out of circuit and noticed something that gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach:

Note at the top picture, the little Plus indicator at the top of the battery.

Note at the bottom picture, the Plus indicator embossed at the bottom of the battery holder.

The inside of the case was fairly dusty (probably kept on the floor) but the area around the battery was clean.

It looks like my client replaced the battery but put it in backwards. I will be trying the machine again later tonight with a couple of AA cells in a holder with test clips that I use for this purpose but my gut feeling is not a good one.

I will be checking with ReLectronics next Tuesday to see if they have any Power Computing motherboards but I am not holding my breath. Fortunately, decent MACs of this vintage are often for sale for well under $100 so he can resuscitate his system in a new box but this is not what he will be wanting to hear…

Hashima Island

I am a big fan of Urban Archeology — looking at the history of abandoned and older buildings. I just found out about an amazing place, Hashima Island off the coast of Nagasaki, Japan.

From Brian Burke-Gaffney:

Hashima: The Ghost Island
Seen from a distance, Hashima Island might be mistaken for the Japanese counterpart of Alcatraz rising from the ocean like a ragged slab of concrete, or perhaps a gambling resort with deserted hotels. Few casual observers would ever guess that, only 40 years ago, this tiny island was the site of a thriving community with the highest population density on earth.

One among 505 uninhabited islands in Nagasaki Prefecture, Hashima lies in the East China Sea some 15 kilometers from Nagasaki, its naked crags striking a stark contrast with the verdant peaks of nearby islands. A closer look reveals clusters of unpopulated high-rise buildings pressing up against a man-made sea wall, a battered shrine at the top of a steep rock cliff, and not a single tree in sight.

The clue to the island's mystery lies in coal mining. Reached by long descending tunnels, coal beds below the bottom of the ocean near Hashima disgorged huge quantities of high-grade coal for almost a century. But in 1974 the inhabitants abandoned the island to the wind and salt spray, leaving behind only unneeded belongings and a few stray cats that could not be captured.

Hashima Island is also known as Gunkanjima. (Hashima is its formal name.)
Here is an amazing collection of photographs of Gunkanjima (Hashima Island).
Here are six of them — I reduced the image size, visit Yuji's site for all of the full-size images.

Wonderful stuff!

A comment to this blog -- weather wise

A reader named Mike posted the following comment to this post: Barbra Streisand — Climatologist:

Streisand (and scientists worldwide) mean that climate is getting more extreme (and extreme climate is getting more extreme) and more frequent.

We have never had, in human recorded history, this many tropical storms in one season, this many tropical storms turn into hurricanes in one season, and this many category 3+ hurricanes in one season. We ran out of names and moved to the Greek naming system.

With your attitude and with your level of knowledge, let's hope that you live in a coastal region.

OK - paragraph by paragraph…

“Streisand (and scientists worldwide) mean that climate is getting more extreme (and extreme climate is getting more extreme) and more frequent.”

Streisand (and scientists worldwide) — 'scuse me but Barbra Streisand is a popular entertainer, not a scientist. Perhaps you meant to say “S. as well as scientists”. Minor nit aside, some agenda-driven scientists are saying that the climate is getting more extreme but if you scratch the surface and do a little research, you will find that these “scientists” are being very careful as to what data they look at and which computer models they employ for their projections.

Storm data for the North Atlantic is available from 1492 to present. Sea Captains have always kept logbooks recording the minutiae of sea-going life as well as major events. Here is a graph of Atlantic Tropical Cyclones dating from 1490 through 1994 from the National Hurricane Center:

Click for full-size Image

The black bars are direct observation, the white bars are anecdotal (a Captain will visit and be told of a storm that happened earlier that spring.)

If the rise in activity around the 1870's catches your eye, please note that this was towards the close of the “Golden Age” of Sail and the real beginning of Steam Power for Ships. There were a lot more people on the Ocean than before so of course, the storms that were anecdotal before are now being directly observed and recorded. 1872 was also the year that the first true Oceanographic Survey was started with the four-year Challenger expedition.

What I see in this graph are periodic highs and lows. The spacing seems to be every 80-90 years. 1520, 1600, 1690, 1780. The peak around 1900-1950 is a lot more spread out but this could be normal. Don't forget, there were two world wars and several minor conflicts during this time and a corresponding increase of ships on the ocean. Things quiet down after 1970 and it might appear that we are just entering another periodic uptick in activity.

OK - next paragraph:

“We have never had, in human recorded history, this many tropical storms in one season, this many tropical storms turn into hurricanes in one season, and this many category 3+ hurricanes in one season. We ran out of names and moved to the Greek naming system.”

You know what? You are right. The 2005 season was a doozy and it shattered the records. But, let us look at the big picture:

From the National Climatic Data Center analysis of the 2005 season:

Season Summary
There were a record 27 named storms, of which 14 were hurricanes, exceeding the 1969 record of 12 hurricanes, and 7 were major hurricanes. Of the 7 major hurricanes, an unprecendented 3 reached category 5 status, with a 4th reaching the greatest possible windspeed within category 4 of the Saffir-Simpson scale. The season has been remarkable for its early beginning and number of storms as well as the intensity of the hurricanes, including the most intense hurricane on record for the Atlantic. Many records were broken during the season and a list of the most notable are available at the end of this summary.

But — to continue:

Since reliable records began around the middle of the 20th century (1944) with routine reconnaisance aircraft missions, no season has exceeded 19 named storms until 2005. However, it is known that at least one other season exceeded 20 named storms before 1944 and that was 1933 (21). Prior to the launch of satellites in the 1970s, and particularly before the routine reconnaissance aircraft missions, it was difficult to detect storms that did not affect land or ships, and it is therefore likely that activity in some seasons before the middle of the 20th century is underestimated.

And one more paragraph:

Instead of examining only the number of tropical storms and hurricanes as an indicator of activity, NOAA's Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index takes into account the cumulative strength and duration of each storm. As shown in the figure to the right, 2005 is the third most active season on record behind 1950 and 1995 in terms of the ACE index. Tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic basin has been above normal since 1995. This has been largely in response to the active phase of the multi-decadal signal. The average number of named storms since 1995 has been 13, compared to 8.6 during the preceding 25 years during which time the multi-decadal signal was in an inactive phase. An average of 7.7 hurricanes and 3.6 major hurricanes since 1995 compares to 5 hurricanes and 1.5 major hurricanes from 1970-1994.

Follow the links and read the rest of this analysis. The overall storm energy was about the same but the number of major storms was greater. If what we were seeing was a result of Global Warming, the overall storm energy would be greater.

And to make sure that we are on the same page, I firmly believe that we are entering a Global Warming period. If you look at the historical record, we have had them every couple hundred years or so. In the 900's, settlers in Greenland were harvesting wine grapes. Wine grapes require a lot more heat than eating grapes (the heat promotes the production of the sugar needed for fermentation).

In the 1500's Europe was frozen in the Little Ice Age.
Brueghel painted this image of the canals frozen over:

We are currently entering a warming period. The thing to consider is that this is purely natural. Although we have added some greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, to think that they are causing this warming is bad science and hubris. Anthropogenic Warming is bullshit. The Earth is huge and we are the microbe on the ass of the flea that is biting an elephant.

The loss of Arctic Ice is another cycle that has been documented with over 300 years of ships logbooks. Sure, Greenland's Glaciers are calving more but this is because the icepack is getting thicker and heavier, not a result of warming. And none of these “climatologists” will mention Antarctica these days as the evidence is irrefutable that the amount of ice there is growing. Sure, a few ice shelves broke off but they do this all the time and a floating ice shelf will not affect the Ocean Level any more than floating ice in your drink will affect its level as it melts.

Finally:

“With your attitude and with your level of knowledge, let's hope that you live in a coastal region.”

Mike — you possess not only a small mind but also a small heart.
I would never wish this on anyone in the spirit that you are wishing it to me.

My wish for you is that you experience some growth: personal, emotional and scientific.

As for me, I like where we live — in the foothills of an active volcano.

A close look at BioFuels

Great article at St. Paul Pioneer Press/Twin Cities:

Biofuels are no cure-all for energy needs
When discussing economic policies it is important to not let rhetoric overpower reality. That happened in a recent, much-reprinted New York Times article that argued “endless fields of corn in the Midwest can be distilled into endless gallons of ethanol … that could end any worldwide oil shortage … and free the United States from dependence on foreign energy.”

The story went on to discuss how much energy goes into producing ethanol. But it failed to substantiate its lead assertion of “endless gallons of ethanol” that might “free the United States” from oil imports.

The United States is an agricultural powerhouse, but even common crops like corn are not endless. In 2004, we harvested just under 12 billion bushels of corn, the most in several years. One bushel of corn yields about 2.7 gallons of ethanol. So if we processed all the corn we produce, we would have 32 billion gallons of fuel alcohol.

That sounds like a lot, but we also have a large country with many vehicles. We burn approximately 14 million barrels per day of petroleum-based “motor fuels.” That is about 588 million gallons per day or 215 billion gallons per year. It sounds like a lot in absolute terms, but with a population nearing 300 million, it averages less than two gallons per person per day.

Processing all corn grown in the U.S. into alcohol would cover about 55 days worth of driving. That is a significant amount, but it is far from a level that “could end any worldwide oil shortage.”

Yes, corn acreage could be expanded. Yes, other crops such as barley and wheat can also be used to produce ethanol. Yes, crop yields will continue to increase with improved technology. And yes, nongrain crops such as pasture or range grasses could go into ethanol production.

The point is, however, that even with massive increases in alcohol production and substantial increases in vehicle mileage, it is not likely that biofuels will replace fossil fuels for decades, if ever.

While biofuels are less environmentally harmful than petroleum fuels, they are not benign. Even at current acreages, corn production consumes fuel and fertilizer and entails soil erosion. Extending fuel crop production onto marginal land would exacerbate these problems.

As petroleum becomes scarcer and we seek effective ways to limit pollution, biofuels are likely to play an increasingly important role in our economy. If we implement prudent policies, increases in biofuel use can be economically efficient and make our society better off. Such policies would include incentives to reduce energy use and to develop energy saving technology. They would not mandate arbitrary levels of any specific technology including ethanol or diesel fuel derived from soy or other vegetable oils.

But we should not get carried away with our own rhetoric. Grain-derived fuel alcohol is not a panacea for all energy and environmental problems. Deluding ourselves into thinking that it is will lead us to policies that will harm our society rather than help it.

What he said. People want to jump on bandwagons without exploring all of the consequences. Our current crop of agenda-driven scientists have a lot of responsibility for this, issuing fatuous “press releases” that seem to cure but that do not work in the real world. You need to look at the big picture.

The PC Guide

Very good reference when working on older systems: The PC Guide

The PC Guide has been around since 1997 and it was last updated May 2005 so it is relatively current. Good stuff!

There is an active forum section as well as a bunch of useful links.

Orphan Works

This seems to be the season for odious bits of legislation.

First NAIS (see my posts two posts and also visit NoNAIS)
Now Congress wants to seriously gut the Federal Copyright Laws when it comes to photography.

From the American Society of Media Photographers website:

Urgent Call for Your Action on Orphan Works
The U.S. Copyright Office issued its report on Orphan Works only a couple of weeks ago. The end of that report contained proposed language for an amendment to the Copyright Act. That proposal is now being fast-tracked in Washington with a good chance of passage before the end of this Session. In my opinion, if that language is enacted in its current form, it will be the worst thing that has happened to independent photographers and other independent visual artists since Work Made for Hire contracts.

Orphan works are basically works whose copyright owners cannot be located. The term “Orphan Works” is really a dangerously misleading phrase. It makes it sound as if it includes only a few works that are not valued enough by their creators to warrant taking care of them. That may be true for owners of many kinds of copyrights. However, the reality is that for independent photographers and illustrators, the majority of your published photographs may well become Orphan Works. The reason for that is that, unlike just about every other category of copyrighted works, photographs and illustrations are typically published without any copyright notice or credit to the photographer or illustrator. The one exception to that has traditionally been editorial uses, but even there the trend seems to be away from providing credit lines. As more and more photographs are published on the Internet, credits become even rarer. Worse, even if you registered your photographs at the Copyright Office, there is no mechanism for identifying you or your photograph or for locating you through those records, if the user does not know your name.

Under the proposed legislation, a person or other entity who wants to use a copyrighted work is required to make only a “good faith, reasonably diligent search” to locate the copyright owner. If, after making such a search, the user is unable to locate the copyright owner, he/she/it gets an almost free license to use the work. If the copyright owner never comes forward, the user gets to use the work for free. Even if the copyright owner discovers the use and demands payment, the MOST the copyright owner can get is “reasonable compensation,” i.e. a reasonable license fee for the use actually made. There is NO possibility of statutory damages or attorneys' fees, even if the work was registered before the use was made without your permission.

And it gets worse. If you take photos, design websites or create art, this is of concern to you and you should send a letter to the people involved. The website provides a list of the people involved with their FAX numbers.

Any port in a storm

With all the cry over the Arabs buying control of six US ports, it's worth checking a few facts.

From UPI:

UAE terminal takeover extends to 21 ports
A United Arab Emirates government-owned company is poised to take over port terminal operations in 21 American ports, far more than the six widely reported.

The Bush administration has approved the takeover of British-owned Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. to DP World, a deal set to go forward March 2 unless Congress intervenes.

P&O is the parent company of P&O Ports North America, which leases terminals for the import and export and loading and unloading and security of cargo in 21 ports, 11 on the East Coast, ranging from Portland, Maine to Miami, Florida, and 10 on the Gulf Coast, from Gulfport, Miss., to Corpus Christi, Texas, according to the company's Web site.

This buy-out has been in the works since last November.
From this Treasury Department Press Release:

CFIUS and the Protection of the National Security in the Dubai Ports World Bid for Port Operations
All members of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) understand that their top priority is to protect our national security, including homeland security.

On November 29 of last year, two companies publicly announced a proposed transaction: Dubai Ports World (DPW), a state-owned company located in the United Arab Emirates, proposed to acquire The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), a British firm that operates in a number of U.S. ports and other ports around the world. The acquisition would include terminal port operations at a number of U.S. ports – not the ports themselves. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), particularly the Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is in charge of port security.

DPW and P&O believed that this proposed transaction could raise national security issues that should appropriately be reviewed by the U.S. Government. The companies contacted CFIUS on October 17 and voluntarily told the Committee of their intention to file a notification with CFIUS for a national security review. They also held a complete briefing for DHS and other CFIUS members with security, defense, or law enforcement responsibilities on October 31.

Each of the CFIUS 12 members (departments and agencies) conducts its own internal analysis. In this case, the Departments of Transportation and Energy were also brought in to the CFIUS review to widen the scope and to add the expertise of those agencies reviewing the transaction.

On November 2, well before DP World and P&O filed with Treasury, CFIUS requested an intelligence assessment of the foreign acquirer. A little more than 30 days later — still well before the companies formally filed with CFIUS or the review began — the intelligence community provided CFIUS with a threat assessment regarding whether the foreign acquirer — DPW – has the intention or capability to threaten U.S. national security.

And finally, foreign management of US ports is nothing new.
From The SF Gate:

Foreign involvement is nothing new
Reports that the government of Dubai is on the verge of taking over six U.S. seaports have been greatly exaggerated.

Even so, Congress is right in demanding more details about a deal that would put a company backed by the government of Dubai, one of seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, in charge of some operations at major U.S. ports.

And:

Most terminal operators at U.S. ports are foreign companies and some are owned in part by foreign governments.

APL, which manages terminals in Oakland, Los Angeles, Seattle and Alaska, is owned by the NOL Group, which is majority owned by the Singapore government.

The Chinese government owns part of a company that operates a terminal at the Port of Long Beach.

That company, Cosco Container Lines, a division of China Cosco, caused a stir similar to the current one back in 1998.

Cosco ships had been calling on the Port of Long Beach for many years, using a public terminal. In the late 1990s, it wanted to build its own terminal at the former Long Beach Naval Station, says Howard Finkel, a senior vice president with Cosco.

The deal raised national-security concerns and Congress passed a bill that effectively scuttled it.

A few years later, other tenants at the port vacated space and Cosco was able to build its own terminal, says Art Wong, public information office for the Port of Long Beach.

R.I.P. Don Knotts

Actor Don Knotts passed away — Yahoo/AP has an obituary:

Don Knotts, TV's Lovable Nerd, Dies at 81
Don Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on “The Andy Griffith Show,” has died. He was 81.

Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs “The Andy Griffith Show,” and another Knotts hit, “Three's Company.”

And a bit more (talking about the Andy Griffith show):

The show ran from 1960-68, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. It is one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top: The others are “I Love Lucy” and “Seinfeld.” The 249 episodes have appeared frequently in reruns and have spawned a large, active network of fan clubs.

As the bug-eyed deputy to Griffith, Knotts carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.

Knotts, whose shy, soft-spoken manner was unlike his high-strung characters, once said he was most proud of the Fife character and doesn't mind being remembered that way.

An American Icon.

Quantum Computing

My brain hurts… From the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:

Quantum computer solves problem, without running
By combining quantum computation and quantum interrogation, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found an exotic way of determining an answer to an algorithm – without ever running the algorithm.

Using an optical-based quantum computer, a research team led by physicist Paul Kwiat has presented the first demonstration of “counterfactual computation,” inferring information about an answer, even though the computer did not run. The researchers report their work in the Feb. 23 issue of the journal Nature.

Quantum computers have the potential for solving certain types of problems much faster than classical computers. Speed and efficiency are gained because quantum bits can be placed in superpositions of one and zero, as opposed to classical bits, which are either one or zero. Moreover, the logic behind the coherent nature of quantum information processing often deviates from intuitive reasoning, leading to some surprising effects.

“It seems absolutely bizarre that counterfactual computation – using information that is counter to what must have actually happened – could find an answer without running the entire quantum computer,” said Kwiat, a John Bardeen Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at Illinois. “But the nature of quantum interrogation makes this amazing feat possible.”

Sometimes called interaction-free measurement, quantum interrogation is a technique that makes use of wave-particle duality (in this case, of photons) to search a region of space without actually entering that region of space.

Utilizing two coupled optical interferometers, nested within a third, Kwiat’s team succeeded in counterfactually searching a four-element database using Grover’s quantum search algorithm.

“By placing our photon in a quantum superposition of running and not running the search algorithm, we obtained information about the answer even when the photon did not run the search algorithm,” said graduate student Onur Hosten, lead author of the Nature paper. “We also showed theoretically how to obtain the answer without ever running the algorithm, by using a ‘chained Zeno’ effect.”

Quantum is one of those bizarre area where if you think that you understand it, you are either insane or you do not fully understand what is being asked. Quantum computing is now in its infancy but this will be the future of computing in 20 years or so.

Light posting again today

Jen and I set the alarm for 5:00am and got up and drove the 200 miles from our farm down to Olympia, Washington (our State Capital) to meet with Representative Kelli Linville regarding the NAIS legislation I mentioned in yesterday's post. We met up with a bunch of other like-minded people, some of whom came in from Eastern WA (a much longer drive) and we set up a table on the Capitol steps from 11:00am to 1:00pm and proceeded to talk with anyone who was interested in what we had to say.

Some people blew us off but if we got someone to come over to see what we were about, we were generally able to get them very interested. There is a large movement in this area for Organic Farming and “Slow Food” and legislation of this sort will make it that much harder for us to provide these to our customers. Plus, the Federal law as written affects anyone with large animals — horse, llama and alpacca owners included.

At 1:00pm, we met with Representative Linville who reassured us that the WA State legislation is directed only towards Dairy and Beef cattle and there is a built-in cutoff for smaller herds (either 30 or 50 animals — forget which) where the registration becomes strictly voluntary.

She was happy to meet with us and she then had her aide put us in touch with the assistant to our Federal Congressman who handles Agricultural matters. This made the entire trip worthwhile as getting a foot in the door on the Federal level can sometime take a lot of effort and we had one handed to us on a plate (actually, a page from a green memo pad and a few phone calls but same diff…).

The one thing that was really interesting is that during the two hours we were on the Capitol steps, there were a number of school groups touring the campus. Ages ranged from pre-teen to late High-School. Some of the students were interested, some of the teachers expressed interest but for each group, there was a “minder” that insisted that they have no contact with us and that shepherded them away from our area.

We were well dressed, not rowdy, mostly middle-aged and some with kids. We had a few picket signs but we were holding them quietly. No giant paper mache puppets. No singing Kum-by-ah.

So correct me if I am wrong but these school kids are being brought to the State Capitol to see how WA State is governed and how the legislative process works, but they are being told that contact with one of the more fundamental parts of lawmaking “Ist Verboten!”

I will own up to calling out “Freedom of Speech” and Censorship” and the main URL of NoNAIS.ORG a few times to their backs. So flog me.

NAIS - your government at work

Jen and I have been following this legislative train-wreck with an increasing sense of dread and frustration.

The item is NAIS — the National Animal Identification System
This is supposed to protect us against terrorism and ensure a safe supply of food. In reality, it is a one-size-fits-all piece of legislation that mirrors what the large commercial producers are already doing but also makes it mandatory for the small farmer to follow the same procedures whether these make sense at that scale or not.

All premises have to be registered.
Your premises can be registered without your knowledge, simply buying a sack of chicken feed will cause an entry in the national database. If you have a vet visit your farm, the veterinarian is obligated to register your premises. Invasion of privacy anyone?

Every animal is chipped at the expense of the owner (So you spend $10-$30 to chip a chicken that costs you $1.00 and you plan to eat yourselves…)
You need to file a report whenever an animal is born, bought, sold, killed and this is interesting: moved. If you take a doe to a stud to get some nookie, that transaction has to be reported.

When you talk with the people promoting this, they are quick to assure you that there will be a different set of rules for small holders whose animals do not enter 'mainstream' food production…

…the text of the legislation is quite different and very draconian with stiff fines for non-compliance. If these people are saying one thing, they should be changing the text on their website to match what they are saying.

NoNAIS.org

Stop Animal ID.org

One of the other issues is that the States (not wanting to feel left out) are starting to look at legislation of their own.

Please, for the sake of the Small American Farmer, spend 30 minutes of your time looking into this and sending an email to your congress-critters. The NoNAIS website has a collection of links under their CONTACTS listing. Tell some friends.

American farmers, large and small, only account for about 2% of the USA population but we are the ones who feed everyone.

We do not ask for help often but we are now and we can really use it…

Thanks!

The Greenland Glaciers

The glaciers are shrinking! The glaciers are shrinking!

It seems that the people who reported this didn't give up all of the data.

From the Technology Commerce Society website:

Ice Storm
The latest issue of Science contains a paper by Eric Rignot and Pannir Kanagaratnam claiming that glaciers along the periphery of Greenland are melting at a rapidly increasing rate. Another paper on this subject was published by Science just last year. Ola Johannessen did not consider direct ice lost by glaciers into the ocean but instead only focused on elevations changes. Johannssen showed that increasing snowfall in Greenland was leading to greater ice accumulations than had previously been measured and this was acting to slow Greenland's contribution to sea level rise. It was conspicuously ignored in this new report.

People like this give Science (the study, not the paper) a bad name…

Light posting tonight

Was at the preview for this auction.

I took a bunch of pictures and will post them this weekend — the scope of the place is amazing. Big big industrial place - fascinating sort of urban archeology.

One item I'm going to be bidding on. (crossing fingers!)

New levels of pain...

Let me tell you, Milk snorting from one's nose can be painful.
Beer is even worse. These guys should offer a warning before you visit their website!

Once again, Cox and Forkum absolutely NAIL IT!

Click for full-size Image

DOH!

As you know, I have been having problems with the cache at our satellite provider. This manifests as having older pages being displayed in the browser. Hitting the refresh button [F5] has no effect.

Found out that hitting [CTRL]+[F5] forces a reload from the source URL. Works like a charm!

A nice turn of phrase

Someone on a machining forum was talking about an older system and they said that it was: “state of the ark”

Cute!

Jean-Luc Picard -- Starfleet Captain and Blogger

Good stuff: A Diary of a Harassed Starfleet Officer in the 24th Century on the Star Trek of Life

An amazing Rock and Roll treasure

I ran into this news story at CBS:

A Memorabilia Collection That Rocks
It sounds more like something from the old West than modern day San Francisco. It was dusty. It was musty. It didn't smell real good.

This is a true story about buried treasure. Deep in the basement of a non-descript warehouse, down a maze of back alleys, Bill Sagan discovered what amounts to a goldmine.

“It was 25 feet high in height, below ground. Part of it was below ground,” said Sagan. “And there were, I thought, hundreds of thousands of items that were in there. And truly there were millions of items.”

It was a rock-and-roll treasure trove—millions of original photographs, posters, documents and much more of forgotten artifacts from an unforgettable musical era.

“We've been told that there exists no other trove of rock-and-roll history that is anywhere near the size of this anywhere else,” said Sagan.

To explain where this lost treasure came from we have to travel back more than 40 years to a time when San Francisco was at the vanguard of the rock-and-roll revolution. And leading the charge was one man, Bill Graham.

Turns out that Bill was quite the pack-rat — it's not just the photographs and posters, there are also thousands of concert tapes, videos, millions of photographs, etc:

First there are the photographs. “I thought there was maybe a half million to a million slides and negatives,” said Sagan. “As it turned out, there's probably is closer to a million and a half to two million slides and negatives.”

There are posters by the thousands, the psychedelic artwork that went up weekly in San Francisco in the 60's. “We have more than 500 posters that are so rare that their retail price would be in excess of $15,000,” Sagan estimated. “There were drawers full of tickets from decades of concerts.”

Graham seems to have kept every contract he ever signed. But he had one more big surprise in store, and only after he bought the collection and started going through boxes did Sagan discover what may be the most valuable asset.

“There are nearly 7,000 tapes of 7,000 different performances,' said Sagan. “And the reason I say nearly is because we haven't counted them all and we haven't looked at them all.”

Graham didn't just save memorabilia from the concerts, he saved the concerts themselves—rare, high quality recordings of legendary concerts that haven't been seen or heard, in some cases, for 40 years.

Just to give you an idea of what Sagan discovered: The Who's last performance of their rock opera, “Tommy,” before drummer Keith Moon died at age 26, and the last concert ever from the British punk-rock pioneers The Sex Pistols.

Bill Graham's cameras had captured most of all the big names through three decades of rock. The Allman Brothers, Chicago, Lenard Skynard, Peter Frampton, Bob Marley.

Sagan (the guy who bought the collection) is keeping the really rare stuff together as a collection and is just selling off lesser items and duplicates to fund the collection.

The website for this is here: Wolfgang's Vault
(Bill Graham's given name was Wolfgang Grajonca)

They also have a streaming radio of various concert performances.
Paul Allen must be fuming. [grin]

A tale of two houses

From A Crafty Madness comes this tale of two houses:

Mock the Casbah
It occurs to me that residents of the House of War and residents of the House of Nuts Islam have some very different reactions to some very similar situations. Observe:

Good stuff!

Good on them!

From Bloomberg:

Israel Approves Sanctions on Hamas-Led Palestinians
Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet approved sanctions against the Palestinian Authority today as the militant Hamas group nominated Ismael Hania for prime minister.

The punitive actions include freezing the monthly transfer of about $50 million in tax and customs fees that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and reducing the number of Palestinians allowed to work in Israel, a government statement said. The measures take effect when the new Hamas-led Palestinian cabinet is set up, which could take as long as five weeks.

“It is clear that with a majority for Hamas in the legislature and with the formation of a government under the leadership of Hamas, the Palestinian Authority will become a de facto terrorist authority and Israel cannot accept this,” Olmert said, according to the statement.

The Palestinian Legislative Council yesterday held its first meeting since the election and agreed that Hamas will start negotiations to form a government. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who belongs to the rival Fatah party, called on Hamas to disarm militants and abide by peace agreements with Israel, a request Hamas members rejected.

Emphasis mine. That is the reason for Israel's action. This is not an act to get rid of Hamas, this is an act to get them to wake up and smell the cappuccino. Israel is not going away and if they want to get the money to play “nation” with, they will need to act like a responsible nation.

I feel sorry for them in a sense, they have to climb out from under Arafat's legacy of corruption and terrorism support. If they can manage this, Israel will bend over backwards to help them. If not, say buh-bye!

Bonth, Jameffff Bonth...

Ouch! From The Sunday Mirror:

EXCLUSIVE: THE NAME'S BOND.. BROKE BOND
New James Bond Daniel Craig has already failed to make the grade as a tough guy - after a villain knocked out two of his teeth in his FIRST fight scene.

Craig, 37, was in Prague filming the remake of Casino Royale when the stunt went wrong.

As the shaken star staggered backwards clutching his bleeding mouth, cameramen thought it was a brilliant piece of acting.

But they quickly realised the new 007 was really hurt. His injuries were so bad local dentistry experts could not treat him. So Craig's dentist was flown out from London for emergency surgery in the Czech capital Prague.

Dentist Rod McNeil, based in London's Cavendish Square, fixed caps to his broken teeth then flew back to Britain.

The actor has now been given six gumshields and told to wear them while filming stunt scenes for the £60million movie at Prague's Barrandov Studios.

Stunts can go wrong, sometimes spectacularly…

Global warming anyone?

Brrrr… Much colder than normal for this time.
Check out this map

Click for full-size Image

The parent weather site is excellent (although a wee bit East-Coast centric)

Just wonderful...

From the News Telegraph:

Iranian fatwa approves use of nuclear weapons
Iran's hardline spiritual leaders have issued an unprecedented new fatwa, or holy order, sanctioning the use of atomic weapons against its enemies.

In yet another sign of Teheran's stiffening resolve on the nuclear issue, influential Muslim clerics have for the first time questioned the theocracy's traditional stance that Sharia law forbade the use of nuclear weapons.

One senior mullah has now said it is “only natural” to have nuclear bombs as a “countermeasure” against other nuclear powers, thought to be a reference to America and Israel.

The pronouncement is particularly worrying because it has come from Mohsen Gharavian, a disciple of the ultra-conservative Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, who is widely regarded as the cleric closest to Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Nicknamed “Professor Crocodile” because of his harsh conservatism, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi's group opposes virtually any kind of rapprochement with the West and is believed to have influenced President Ahmadinejad's refusal to negotiate over Iran's nuclear programme.

The comments, which are the first public statement by the Yazdi clerical cabal on the nuclear issue, will be seen as an attempt by the country's religious hardliners to begin preparing a theological justification for the ownership - and if necessary the use - of atomic bombs.

Words fail…

Light posting today

Been busy with farm stuff the last couple days (the rain finally stopped!) plus going through a bunch of transformers getting them ready for sale (not just the neons!)

I'll post a bit after dinner and the usual spew will resume tomorrow.

Besides, I have a nice juicy troll to eviscerate!!!

Dutch Cartoon (animated with sound)

Gerard at American Digest points us to this animated cartoon that really sums up the Jihadisti reaction to their precccioussssesses Mohamed cartoons.

Cute candy idea

From Firebox.com:

Roulette Chocolate
Willy Wonka meets the Deer Hunter!



Eating chocolate is not something most of us usually associate with raw, buttock-clenching tension. A quick straw poll around Firebox HQ showed that the closest any of us has ever come to this pleasure-meets-pain-style sensation was when we shared a tube of Smarties whilst watching the final episode of 24.

The thing is, chomping on choccy has always been a relatively humdrum experience… Until now.

Because by combining one of life's great pleasures (chocolate) with one of death's best buddies (Russian Roulette), clever confectioners have come up with this fiendishly amusing gift box.

Seated in individual compartments, twelve chocolate bullets lay waiting to be bitten into. Although eleven of the sweet little slugs contain delicious praline centres, one conceals a seriously red hot chilli that's guaranteed to blow your head off - metaphorically, at least.

Only available in the EU for now…
Cute idea!

In serious need of a clue

From The United Nations Conference on Disarmament webpage:

CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT HOLDS THOUSANDTH MEETING
The Conference on Disarmament, the world’s sole multilateral forum for disarmament negotiations, this morning held its thousandth meeting, an anniversary that was highlighted by all the speakers who urged further cooperation, compromise and change in order to break the deadlock and return the Conference to the successes of the past.

Addressing the Conference, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva and Secretary-General of the Conference, said without political decisions at the highest levels, even the most determined efforts of the existing multilateral disarmament bodies, including the Conference on Disarmament, would not succeed. The Conference should not be discouraged from using existing and potential mechanisms available to it now, such as debates on issues on the agenda, for mutually influencing policies and security perceptions of Member States and for furthering the consensus building process. In parallel, the Conference should review its working methods and seek new approaches that could make it more responsive to contemporary security threats and challenges.

Emphasis mine — the successes of the past?

You would think that after meeting one thousand times and accomplishing exactly zero, it might be time to think about disbanding and moving the resources to something more productive.

A well-reasoned headline

From the Australian Sydney Morning Herald:

Israel puts the squeeze on fledgling democracy
By Ed O'Loughlin Herald Correspondent in Ramallah

Hamas prepares to take charge of the Palestinian parliament today, with Israel warning that the move will spark a diplomatic and economic blockade.

Newly elected MPs from Hamas - which had previously boycotted the Palestinian Authority and its institutions - were expected to nominate the Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh as their candidate for prime minister.

Couple of things — first, go and read the Hamas Charter.
Here are four excerpts:

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.”

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

“After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”

The Protocols of the Elders… has of course been thoroughly debunked as a virulent anti-Semetic hoax.

Finally, running the author's name through Google reveals a very strong anti-Israel bias.

Cool new vaccine technology

The people at Protein Sciences Corporation recently announced a new way to make Flu vaccines.
From this article at Forbes:

New Strategy Speeds Flu Vaccine Production
Researchers say they've developed a commercially viable process that could enable the mass production of flu vaccines within weeks, instead of the months it now takes.

This approach uses a purified protein from the surface of a virus called hemagglutinin (the “H” in a virus' designation — for example — the H5N1 bird flu virus) to trigger an immune response to a specific strain of virus.

The genes responsible for production of hemagglutinin are inserted into a pathogen called a baculovirus, which are then used to infect specific host cells. Those infected cells produce recombinant hemagglutinin (rHA).

Phase II clinical trials show that the vaccines produced using this method are safe and trigger an immune response equal to or greater than conventional chicken egg-based vaccines.

The researchers say they've successfully produced rHA from four strains of influenza that may trigger a pandemic — H5, H7, H9 and H2 — at levels where the cost of vaccine manufacturing would be equal to, or less than, that of traditional egg-based vaccines.

Very interesting — they have a product: FluBlØk™ in PhaseII/III testing and is expected to come to market in 2007. Useful for a lot of other strains too if they can find a good virus carrier. Flu is the one to work on for now though.

Aww Crap!

Word is coming in about a large landslide in the Philippines

From the Canadian Globe and Mail/AP:

200 feared dead, 1,500 missing in Philippine landslide
A landslide rumbled down a mountainside on an eastern Philippine island Friday, burying hundreds of houses and a school packed with elementary students. Red Cross officials estimated at least 200 dead and 1,500 missing.

“It sounded like the mountain exploded, and the whole thing crumbled,” survivor Dario Libatan told Manila radio DZMM. “I could not see any house standing any more.”

Senator Richard Gordon, head of t