Science and the Environment
I'm here to set the record straight. Climate change, environmentalism, eco-friendliness, it's all getting out of control. The political ticket of saying "we're saving the planet!" is worth more to people than the scientific value of real, hard, peer-reviewed evidence.
I'll spare you the science lesson, and skip straight to maths. A lightbulb uses 40-100W of power. In the UK, the power grid is split down like this:
- nuclear: 19.26% @ 16 g/kWh CO2
- coal: 33.08% @ 891 g/kWh CO2
- gas: 39.93% @ 356 g/kWh CO2
This tells us that overall, we produce 16*0.1926 + 891*0.3308 + 356*0.3993 = 439.9752 g/kWh CO2. Figures from wikipedia and world-nuclear.
Ok, so if I run my 60W lightbulb (we're talking standard, not 'energy saving' lightbulbs here) for one hour, I've used up 0.06kWh of electricity and it has cost the country 439.9752*0.06 = 26.398512 grams of CO2. Ok, sounds a lot for a single lightbulb to be producing in gas, but let's compare this to the amount a single human breathes out in that same hour. Now, wikianswers says 2.4 grams per hour for a human being, and micpohling says 462.2916667 grams per hour for a cow (average of the four figures from the link divided by 24 hours in a day multiplied by 1000 grams in a kilogram). So a cow produces the same amount of CO2 as 17 and a half 60W lightbulbs.
There's a statistic for you! Eating beef is good for the environment. Every cow you kill is the same as turning off 17 and a half 60W lightbulbs -forever-. Stick that in your vegetarian environmentalism pipe and smoke it!
Netbook!
First off, an update on my health situation. Well, it has worsened somewhat. I have developed, as has seemingly become my custom after periods of illness, agoraphobia. I am seeing the doctor about it next monday, hopefully I will get to the bottom of this in due course.
Now on the bright side, I got my netbook from ZaReason! It is everything I expected and about three times faster than I thought it would be. The webcam isn't quite as high quality as I was expecting, but that's no big deal really and the battery life is a bit shorter than I would've hoped but there's not much can be done about that now.
There seems to be some minor shipping damage as well, the shift keys are a bit dodgy and the left speaker seems to have a loose connection or some interference or something. Thanks to the open hardware warranty, however, I can fix these myself or get a local shop to do repairs without having to send the thing back halfway across the world, probably picking up more shipping damage along the way.
Speed-wise, I couldn't be happier, the Intel Atom performs exceptionally and the 2GB of RAM is barely used by Ubuntu Netbook Remix (about 200-300MB in use most of the time).
Also, the 'book runs almost silent, drowned out by the noise of my typing on a keyboard whose own sound is drowned out by gentle background conversation. Even under heavy usage.
I've also set up Citadel groupware on my server to replace the postfix/dovecot solution, making it easier to share calendars and other stuff, and giving a more extensive web interface for local users. I will be looking at bundling Citadel with my SMART system when I get around to it.
Ill :( but I bear good news also!
So I took most of yesterday off with a general health complaint, which seems to have continued into today (I speak in general terms to avoid grossing out my readers), so I am off again today. Forgive me if the article seems a bit disjointed, you can imagine why my keyboard availability won't be 100% today.
On a far less disgusting topic, I found a brilliant little niche business yesterday which I am extremely glad to pledge a large portion of my recent paycheque to in return for nothing less than -exactly- what I wanted. I've yet to receive the netbook, but based on the description and reviews I am confident that I will be singing its praises once it arrives. Even if I'm not, though, they have a 30 day money-back policy which would see an almost 100% refund (they charge a nominal restocking fee). I can't see myself returning it; let's go over the spec together:
- 2GB of RAM, which is more than my desktop so quite extraordinarily healthy
- choice of black or mocha (ubuntu coloured) case, I chose black
- Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor
- 10.2" 1024x600 screen. For those who don't know this is towards the top end of netbook screen sizes, which are normally between 7 and 11 inches.
- Draft-N WiFi, which is good because I don't plan to get a mobile broadband connection for it.
- 3 USB ports, unbelievably, that's more than I've seen on most laptops! I don't know what netbooks are like for USB support but I thought it'd only be 1 or maybe 2 tops; well, there's no CD drive so I suppose they have to make up for that but still...
- 640x480 webcam (not the best in the market but definitely good enough as far as I'm concerned)
- 3.5 hours battery life
And by far the best bit, the "windows" key (technically the Super Key, but everyone calls it the Windows key) has an option of either the Ubuntu or Tux (Linux penguin) logo emblazoned for all to see! And the attention to detail doesn't end there! The Made For Windows sticker has been replaced by a Ubuntu sticker, and according to one review they replaced the Windows Product Key with a Ubuntu Product Key. Note that Ubuntu does not need a Product Key like Windows does, and will not nag you to activate your copy of Ubuntu within 30 days after you've already put in the damn key 15 times (and that was on XP, not their newer, more bug-ridden versions of Windows!).
Apparently, the warranty is an Open Hardware Warranty as well, which basically means rather than "DO NOT OPEN THIS CASE" the warranty actually states (paraphrased) "PLEASE OPEN THIS CASE!", which is brilliant because it means I can tinker without losing peace of mind. I ordered it with a 16GB SSD with a view to upgrading the SSD when the prices for SSD come down, and that hardware warranty will make that job a darnsight easier. Not just the warranty being far more flexible but the fact that the manufacturer has created it with tinkering in mind.
I'm sure you're all dying to know just where you can find a linux laptop/desktop/netbook/server with all this and a techsupport email address which replied to my first query within 10 minutes, so with no further ado let me disappoint you by revealing the catch:
The company, ZaReason is based in Berkeley, California. I've had to import the netbook which will put delays and extra price considerations into the deal. However, I have had the idea that I shall get the first netbook, test it, trial it, make sure it's worthy and then invest some money in importing a joblot for sale in the UK. In other words, I may start reselling ZaReason gear from a UK outlet (if I can raise the funds necessary). I shall enter into negotiations with ZaReason regarding this in the coming months. They do ship to the UK and they will ship with UK power cords if you ask them to, but in the interests of faster build-to-reception times, I would like to stock some in the UK on behalf of ZaReason and sell them on for price of unit + shipping + import, with maybe a shred of profit for prospective growth of ZaReasonUK. Let's see how I like my netbook first, though, and leave the international trade negotiations for my next blog post! 
Oh, and before I forget, they helpfully answered my question about a/v chat with an exciting piece of news which I think I heard drifting around the net a few months back but which now has been more or less confirmed (Alpha 5 of Karmic's release notes include this gem).
Ubuntu Karmic Alpha 5 includes the latest GNOME 2.27.91 development release.
Empathy has replaced Pidgin as the default instant messaging client, introducing the Telepathy framework.
The gdm 2.27.91 login manager is a complete rewrite compared to the version in earlier Ubuntu releases.
Exciting or what, eh? And no, I'm not talking about the version number of Gnome being an americanised 27th of February 1991, because that is a rather insignificant date to me. I refer to Empathy, which supports webcam! Unlike Pidgin, who has lacked this support since it changed its name from GAIM (and yes, I am just about old enough to remember that). The other thing to note is the new login manager, which according to the plans I read back when 9.04 had just been released (that's April this year), should prove to be far more fun and exciting than the current login manager. And yes, I am mostly excited because I will be talking to people using Telepathy and that just sounds too cool to pass up.
Ttfn, people, and watch this space closely for updates!
Work!
I started my new job about three weeks ago. The pay isn't great but the work is hard...
In all seriousness, it is possibly the dullest, most frustrating, most tedious job I've ever had. My job is to:
- receive an email
- save the Excel (or occasionally .pdf) attachments
- open up an access database whose frontend has been coded by the three worst UI designers on the face of the planet (and I'm comparing them to whoever came up with the original Xbox dashboard! [note to younger readers: that's the -original- xbox, not the original xbox 360 dashboard])
- copy/paste and in some cases re-type the information in the attachment into the database
Considering I could (and may well do just to prove this point) design a system that does the same job in a quarter of the time with a quarter of the clunkiness and umpteen times the user-friendliness; I'm really quite frustrated!
So my job sucks, but whose doesn't these days? I guess I'll have to live with it for the time being, but there's not much chance I'll take a permanent in that place unless...
I had this idea the other day, that could prove to be quite ingenius (or could just become yet another abandoned idea); basically, I want to head up a new bespoke IT unit called the Alternative Operating Systems Unit, whose remit would be to:
- Promote and support the use of non-Microsoft operating systems within the civil service
- Provide services for the more technical users, such as IRC servers, forums, internal blogging, etc. [optional]
- Create and maintain bespoke software designed to integrate alternative operating systems into the (currently primarily if not wholly Microsoft) network
- Offer training to all users of computer systems for technical challenges such as basic programming, scripting and system administration.
I haven't worked out figures yet, but since a hell of a lot of it would actually be simpler to manage than standard FLITS work, I don't imagine it would cost money (in fact it may well save a lot of money in licensing fees and so on).
I shall post more on this topic later, including a link to a website that I shall start work on soon. Watch this space!
[EDIT: I didn't finish that sentence about figures... oops!]
DReaM on…
Yup, lame pun. And yup, this article is about Dangerously Restrictive Media. Also known as Digital "Rights" Management. Why anybody needs their rights to be managed, goodness only knows. The context of the word "management" in Digital Rights Management seems to be similar to that of "Risk Management". In other words, it means "calculated reduction".
So why do the Media companies impose this kind of restriction on Joe Public? And why does Joe Public care about his Digital Rights? Well, the Media companies are imposing this kind of restriction because they lack faith in the ability of The Law to prosecute thieves. I find this particular lack of faith disconcerting, and it leads me to a similar mistrust of The Law, who seem to agree with The Media that prosecuting thieves isn't enough - they should be allowed to prevent the theft in the first place.
Now, ok, putting a lock on your door and locking it when you go to bed at night is a sensible thing to do to prevent theft. But would you really want to keep the door locked -all the time-? You wouldn't be able to get out, and your friends wouldn't be able to get in! Sure, your stuff is safe, but the user (ie you) is under house arrest!
This is what DRM does, effectively. It isn't a reasonable precaution against piracy, it's overkill. It's a way of saying "you aren't trusted to leave the house or take visitors, so we're locking your door. Permanently. It's for your own good, though!"
Great. The reason I'm complaining, by the way, is because there is much in my house which is DRM'd, and I'm sick and tired of hacking it to get it to play/run/install on the "wrong" hardware, or even just a second device! It's stupid! When I legitimately purchase something, I want to be able to use it however I like, I want to be able to study it, I want to be able to modify it for my own [devious or otherwise] ends and I want to be able to give/sell/lend it to my friends/family if I no longer have a use for it.
This model is true of toasters, TVs, cars, boilers, sofas, beds, houses, kettles, washing machines, microwave ovens... thousands upon thousands of physical products. What it is not true of is software and media (songs, movies, etc.). Now, I grant you that software and media are "intellectual property", which is replicatable by anybody; but, surely, if I could replicate my toaster, maybe even improving it on the way - would it be fair of me to keep the replicated toaster to myself?
And surely if I could replicate my toaster and improve it and sell it on, the original manufacturer could replicate -my- toaster, add its own improvements, and release it all over again! Surely this promotes The Healthy Kind of competition? In fact, surely this -defines- The Healthy Kind of competition!
So, in fact, is it not fantastic that Software is so easily replicatable? From a software-participant*'s point of view, anyway. Well, any software-participant who cares more about Good Software than they do about making a quick buck, anyway.
*software-participant: Someone who participates in the creation, use, modification, study or improvement of software.
Techie stuff again
Dunno why I made that rule, I've never been one for following orders.
Anyway, here's a brief update on the status of sophie.
She has been placed in an SVN repository (read-only anonymous access available), and is stable(ish)!
Ok, so she doesn't do much more than she used to, but she's a little more developer-friendly, and on that note the project has gained a developer! Yes, my good friend Spoon has been recruited into the project and we shall procede forth with vigour and determination! After a procedural discussion meeting, of course, and several planning council arrangements. Not to mention the beuracracy enablement committee formation... But as soon as all of that is out of the way, we can get right to programming. Well, not -right to- as such, I mean we'll first have to submit the application to consider beginning, which needs to be approved by the select general committee. But -then- we'll get into the nitty gritty business of programming! After tea, of course, because it'll be quite late in the day by then. And then we'll have to have the post-tea project alignment talk, which is followed by tea and coffee in the foyer. Once all that is out of the way, we'll get to programming! I think...
Development
So I've started programming again. Woo! My current working development directory (with nightly tarballs of each directory automatically created).
Also, I set up a development newsgroup for you to keep track of my development stuffies - mostly so that I can keep my blog clear of such things. I'd prefer my blog to be as non-technical as possible, because of its demographic (my non-technical friends). If you are interested in my development doobries, I suggest subscribing to news://news.pemcjd.me.uk/browne.chris.dev.
The most intriguing of my new projects is Sophie, who will be an artificial intelligence unit designed for simulated human interaction (Simulated Original Personality for Human Interaction Emulation is what I think the acronym shall be, but it's a reverse acronym - the name "sophie" comes from the greek for "wisdom"). The code is GPL'd but has a couple of extra conditions attached at the bottom of the LICENSE file; still should be Free according to the FSF though so don't go getting your knickers in a twist just yet!
So far, sophie is proving already to be quite frustrating; mostly because I don't actually know C++ but partly because I don't actually know C++. I probably should have stuck to what I know and programmed her in C, but then I've never been very good at making life easy for myself. I find easy life boring though, so it's all good!
If anybody wants to get involved with the development of Sophie, feel free to email me or post to the news group (which should allow posting by just about anyone, with moderation to be performed on an "innocent-until-proven-spamity" basis). I'm always open to suggestion and now is a good time to get involved because she's very young and therefore easy to work with (for now).
Well, that just about wraps it up for today. I must get back to realigning the personality supersimulators so that the reticulation of the subego doesn't unbalance the philanthropic stabilisers... taking into account, of course, anti-flux in the positronic consciousness generator. After all, we wouldn't want the temporo-spatial anomoliser to decouple inside the self-awareness module... That would wreak havoc with the decalibration matrices...
News!
So I set up an NNTP server (ie one that serves usenet-style newsgroups) on my host, mostly as an experiment but that doesn't mean I'll object if anybody else feels like posting to any of the groups on it (you could even get your own newsgroup on the server if you ask nicely enough!).
For those with a newsreader, here is a news link to the feed.
For those without (which will be most of you), I have setup a web frontend with a funny random headline (currently with about 8000 headline combinations available) at: http://news.pemcjd.me.uk.
Thanking you, that is all for now! I know, it's too short; I'll post again soon don't worry!
Abergavenny
So I went to abergavenny today, my brother went pot-holing or caving or something, I just went to keep dad company for the day as it made little sense for him to go to abergavenny, come back, then almost straight away turn back around and go back out to pick mike up. So we had a few hours to kill.
First, we walked the dog around a field we had previously walked him around on a camping holiday - it seemed much smaller this time, but perhaps that's because I'm now used to a large field in which we normally walk our dog (tewkesburians refer to it as "The Ham", though I'm not sure how local that name is). Once we'd done that, we put him in the car and walked into town to get a bite to eat. We decided upon subway and spent a few minutes searching for it, finally finding it at one end of town. We ordered, ate and had a peaceful discussion about the degradation of society.
Once we had eaten, we drove around for a while looking for somewhere to walk the dog, finally settling on a spot just opposite our previous campsite which was an interesting hillwalk. It started off quite scrabbly, which I took to with ease (and, surprisingly, my old dad did too!) and took us through a wood eventually opening up onto a wide track which led to the top. We stopped after a while on the track as it was beginning to go down the side of the hill which was rather deficient in cars belonging to us. Since a circular track would seem to have necessitated the travelling down the rather busy road at the bottom of the hill, we decided to go back the way we came (which was partly the plan all along, given the fact we had predicted a lack of options in this regard - so much the plan in fact that I had left a marker at one of the only junctions we had come to, as the path we had come up was not the "main" path and therefore we could easily have got lost had it not been for that marker).
After we got back to the car, we still had a few hours to kill so we motored on back into town and sat down in a nice out of the way cafe called... amiglios? it was something italian or spanish, anyhow. The waitress who took our order was very friendly. We sat and sipped conversation while having a tea, which was most pleasant. I personally was beginning to develop a headache so before we returned to the car we picked up some paracetamol. I took a couple on the way back to the car and then we went to pick up mike, I think.
I missed a few large periods of nothing-happening-ness, as I feel the day was quite boring enough as it was without needing to be endullened (if only language permitted) by said periods. I did enjoy that walk, though, despite falling over at one point (misjudged just how muddy the ground was - it was a hot day today, so I wasn't expecting a veritable mini-marshland in the middle of a field) and scratching my hand - not that I noticed I had scratched it until I saw the blood, but that's just my nature. Maybe because I was brought up for the most part in the countryside (or what I would describe as fairly rural ground anyway) but more likely a natural predisposition to getting on with it when I'm outside in the fresh air enjoying myself.
So that was my day, pretty interesting for me at the time but probably not so much for anybody who got this far through the story without collapsing in a heap from a mixture of heat exhaustion, boredom and spending WAY too long glued to their screen.
Goodnight!
License
This work by Christopher Browne is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
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Formspring me ;)
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