Monthly Archive for March, 2007

Carbon Footprint and Population

Published
by
Ben Balbo
on March 28, 2007
in Environment
. 5 Comments

A comment on my post “Why I don’t want kids” mentions the impact our daily activities have on this world. That reminds me of a conversation I ha with someone a while ago. A US TV show took a suburban family and calculated that if everyone in the world lived the way they do, they would need 12 planets to provide the resources required. This family was then sent to live with a group of extremely environmentally aware people. They had only installed their first solar-panel just after the family arrived.

After a week (or so) of living with them, it was calculated that to live the environmentally friendly way would require 1.8 planets to provide the resources required.

This made me think: if living as environmentally aware as possible requires 1.8 planets, then how are we ever going to address the current imbalance? Of course we could try to repair the planet at half the rate we’re damaging it in order to bring that number down to just under 1 planet, but there’s something more fundamental than that.

This planet wasn’t designed to support 6.5 billion people. If the value of 1.8 above is correct, then this planet cannot naturally sustain more than 3.6 billion humans.

The numbers here are for illustrative purposes only. The quoted number of planets required to sustain a given style of living are based on information from a friend whose memory might or might not be reliable. The population this planet can support is dependent on many other factors, including other animal populations.

Make way - spin doctor coming through

Published
by
Ben Balbo
on March 27, 2007
in Random
. 0 Comments

I can’t laugh at this, it’s just too expected. But I thought I’d share anyway.

“[...] Microsoft said today that it sold more than 20 million Windows Vista licenses in the first month after the OS’s general debut on January 30. This compares to 17 million licenses of XP sold in the first two months after its release.”

“The Associated Press dug deeper, noting that since XP’s release the overall PC market has grown by almost a factor of 2, so it would be a surprise if Vista didn’t do twice as well [...] Also, Microsoft’s 20 million figure includes the backlog of upgrade coupons bundled with XP computers sold since last October.”

From SlashDot

Winning Against Linux The Smart Way

Published
by
Ben Balbo
on March 20, 2007
in Open Source and Security
. 2 Comments

Microsoft have launched a web site that helps its partners identify Linux “Personas” (i.e. the types of people that use Linux). This list of five personas helps Microsoft partners identify and target these people with a view to forcing persuading them that Microsoft is better.
For example, a Linux Experimenter is defined as “largely a Microsoft shop experimenting with Linux” who is “looking to lower his total cost of ownership by experimenting with open source software technologies”.

Here’s what a Microsoft partner is persuaded to do:

Question the need for experimenting in light of third-party evidence/studies demonstrating that Windows Server 2003 has lower TCO than Linux. Also emphasize Windows’ growing leadership in business Web and intranets.

Well, I’m sold. Are you?

http://www.linuxpersonas.com/

Do you have uni assignments hosted anywhere?

Published
by
Ben Balbo
on March 20, 2007
in Patents
. 0 Comments

I went to University and studied Software Engineering. I also did Computing at high school. I’ve also been programming in one way or another since the age of 8. I’m not unusual.

One of the things I learned about was data storage, and how it actually works. For example, an array of data is a single data store that allows you to store multiple items. For example, you might have an array of contacts where each element of the array is an email address. The way an array works in terms of raw storage in memory is quite simple.

  • A variable points to a location in memory,
  • That location contains the first element followed by a pointer to another point in memory,
  • That location contains the first element followed by a pointer to another point in memory,
  • Etc… until the pointer to the next point in memory signifies the “end of array” marker.

This is called a linked list - because each item in the list is linked to the next. Now one day, some guy (it might have been a gal, but we’ll call him Bob for now) decided he wanted a way to find the previous item in the list. Instead of starting at the start of the list again, Bob just added a second pointer to each element pointing to the previous element. And thus was born the doubly-linked list.

Now imagine you want those elements sorted, but you still want to keep the “natural order”. You’d need a second linked list for the sorted version. Or you can just give each element 4 pointers, 2 for the natural order (previous/next) and 2 for the sorted order (previous/next). Now you have a list with multiple pointer to other elements.

If you’ve ever used this type of data storage, I highly recommend you remove any proof thereof from any publicly accessible source, find the print outs and burn them, preferably after a good soaking in something flammable*. Why?

Ming-Jen Wang of Colorado Springs has a patent on:

A computerized list is provided with auxiliary pointers for traversing the list in different sequences. One or more auxiliary pointers enable a fast, sequential traversal of the list with a minimum of computational time. Such lists may be used in any application where lists may be reordered for various purposes.

US Patent Office

It seems that the USPTO have extremely highly qualified examiners, and Mr Wang found a way of registering unenforceable patents through Cochran Freund & Young LLP, the Attorney, Agent or Firm listed against this patent.

* This is a joke. If you burn (or kill) yourself (or someone/thing else) or destroy anything or indeed cause anything at all to happen by following my obviously ridiculous suggestion then you probably deserve what you get.

Thanks to Uber Monkey for giving me the tip on this story.

Access cards to protect personal identity

Published
by
Ben Balbo
on March 16, 2007
in Politics, Privacy and Security
. 1 Comment

I heard a news article on a radio show this morning on the planned “health and social services access card”. The idea is this card will reduce the red tape involved with accessing government services such as Medicare and Centrelink.

Interestingly, the government is planning to place a photo of the card holder on the card, which will protect personal identity. Given the unnaturally early time of this news item, I don’t remember the exact wording.

There is a lot of controversy about this card, but I have to say I think they’ve nailed it. If carrying a piece of plastic in my pocket that has my photo on it stops someone in Asia fraudulently using a copy of my credit card, then I’m all for it. In fact, I’m about to laminate a passport photo now - why wait for the compulsory National ID health and social services access card?

At least our government isn’t using scare tactics in order to get their citizens to conform to its demands without question.

Oh, hang on a minute…