Bracing against the wind

OpenEEG

2009-06-08T00:52:00.000-07:00

Mostly I'm posting this for self-reference since I'm excited about the idea of putting together an OpenEEG system and testing some ideas I have about using EEG to help you remember dreams, but my wife is hollering at me from the other room to come to bed. Ah the irony.

I know Neurosky has a product that's cheaper and available to buy online, but it seems to not be a serious EEG connection. I think you'd need at least a half-dozen electrodes for any kind of useful resolution, and I'm not interested in biofeedback "wave" nonsense. I'm going to do some serious pattern detection in response to stimulus events. Emotiv has a product with at least 2 real electrodes and an API cluttered with lots of facial recognition stuff. But why get those or $300 when I can buy 5 good electrodes for $30? Might even skip the OpenEEG stuff and do my own for now.

Also want to experiment with voltage *generating* (EEG record-replay and subsequent recognition). Not too many people have tried that, and I think it might be interesting.

Hmm... that's it for now.

Zero Pollution Motors

2009-06-05T04:28:00.001-07:00

In an amazing development, it looks like all of the electric vehicle makers may be trumped by Zero Pollution Motors. The company is licensing new drive systems to India's Tata and France's MDI.

The cars will get 125 miles per plug-in "charge", but the charge is not a battery or a fuel cell.

It's compressed air.

Using extreme air compression, ZPM's s technology might beat battery-driven vehicles on price, performance and time to market.

Indian consumers should see the new Air-Tata this year, Euro consumers might have to wait until MDI gets approval in 2010, but U.S. consumers, due to tougher crash-testing standards, might have to wait longer.

ZPM claims their vehicle can be charged at an outlet within 7 minutes. They also have a duel-fuel version that compresses air as needed, similar to the way the Volt's serial-power drive train works.

Skeptics:

Some experts believe that the heat-exchanger problems with compressed-air cars might prevent them from ever going mainstream. U.S. critics have claimed that ultralight cars like these cannot pass crash testing standards. Engineers also critique the efficiency of using air, as opposed to Li-Ion, as a storage medium with the resulting energy losses causing more electricity to be needed per KM.

Unemployment Worse than Stress Tests

2009-05-30T04:40:00.000-07:00

Government stress tests had an unemployment rate of 9.1% in May. Most analysts expect unemployment to hit 9.2% in May.

In other words... we're outpacing the "adverse scenario" stress tests.

If we pass 10.3% unemployment, then we will *exceed* the stress scenario.

With an additional 1% unemployment, we're talking about 10 billion more in write-downs on credit card debt and real-estate defaults, This will exceed what major banks than have in reserve... and the market has eaten its full in stock issuance and bond conversions, so where will the banks get the money from?

Answer: Expect another round of bailouts in the Fall... right about when the second phase of swine flu will hit.

Cure for Chronic Arthritis ... But Not For You

2009-05-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

I just read an article where a $3000 stem-cell treatment cured chronic arthritis.

First, the patient's fat cells were sent to a lab. The stem cells were extracted, propagated, and sent back. The enriched solution of cells was injected into arthritic joints. The results happened fast... reduced swelling, no pain, etc.

In this story, prior to treatment, the patient couldn't even walk. But afterward, he could chase a ball, roll over and even fetch...

Dogs, cats and horses can get long-lasting arthritic relief with this inexpensive and safe procedure. The procedure is called "HSCT" (hemopoietic stem cell transplantation).

Looking at recent abstracts it's sort of a foregone assumption that the procedure works, and works well. Tests of HSCT have been done over and over.... as early as 1999. All the tests, even the older ones, seems to result in a large percentage of patients being symptom-free for long periods of time, ranging from 6 months to 2 years. You can read a history of research at the NIH website.

But even with all this research, the treatment isn't used on humans very often. No large-scale clinical trials of an inexpensive autologous HSCT treatment for non-life threatening RA is underway. Most experts believe it will never be tried. All the literature talks about using lots of drugs in conjunction with the treatment, and only doing the treatment on people who are going to die, etc. For most people, the solution is still pharmaceutical, and will probably stay that way....forever.

Why?

In 2003, the CDC estimated that $80 billion was spent on medical expenses related to arthritis. That's over 80 billion per year.

If all 8.6 million people with arthritis in the U.S. got a $3000 stem cell treatment, it would cost $25 billion. But that assumes there's no economy of scale. The price tag for large-scale treatment would easily be as low as $500. Something like the way LASIK is today. Lab culturing isn't that expensive. And it's very likely that the cure would last many years to come (the human patients from 2004 are still cured).

Unfortunately this would, effectively, bankrupt the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, leading to an 60-80 billion dollar shortfall per year. Over time, we're talking trillions of dollars of revenue losses.

So.... there is no way this is *ever* going to get approved in the U.S. Not even in Obama's "change lite" vision of America. IMO, no chance at all.

Yahoo News is better than Google

2009-05-08T18:04:00.000-07:00

I've been noticing that at least one Yahoo offering is better than Google. Nothing can touch Google's search, or Gmail for that matter. But Yahoo's news feeds seem way more interesting and relevant. I looked once, and haven't looked back since.

Yahoo's finance pages are nicer too, esp for having after-hours/premarket, volume, moving average.

The FTC talks about Google having a monopoly, but I think their competitors are just a few AJAX scripts shy of beating them on many fronts.

Why the big deal about same-sex marriage?

2009-05-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

I always thought that "civil unions" were the same and what was being argued about was some sort of semantics that truly was the purview of culture and not government. I mean, what's the real difference? It's something that never seems to be talked about in the news, or at least, it never passes my automatic sound-byte filter.

Anyway, since it's cropping up again in the news i did a search and read this very interesting and exacting article on about.com.

Apparently, the word "marriage" is a very legal term, and the words "civil union" essentially convey no rights whatsoever. In the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, they essentially throw out same-sex marriage, and ignore civil unions.

I honestly think that most same-sex couples would give up the word "marriage", in exchange for well-reasoned "federal civil unions". Well, some of them might. Certainly enough to back-burner the whole issue for a long time.

Obama's a bit boxed into a corner now, he should talk to leaders on both sides and find something, perhaps federal civil unions, before his hand is forced.

Samarost-Style Games

2009-05-05T07:25:00.000-07:00

Samorost is a genre-defining classic "room escape" game, so much so that people often call other similar games "samorost-style games" instead.

Noakai loves Samorost, but I still haven't paid for Samorost-2, mostly because what he likes is *easy* ones, and I've heard the new one is harder.

My room escape bookmark list for Noakai. He's 4, so they are all easy.

Viral Batteries Now Viable

2009-04-29T07:38:00.000-07:00

Viral battery experiments have paid off with a breakthrough in battery assembly.

"Current lithium batteries are expensive to produce, requiring high temperatures and toxic organic solvents."

The new technology uses viruses as workhorses to move around molecules and assemble microscopic battery components. If developed, this promises cheap, scalable, non-toxic Li-ION batteries - exactly what electric cars need to push out liquid fuel rivals. The problem has gone from a research issue to an engineering issue.

For anyone who's been investing in lithium mining (i own some SQM), one big downside has been the toxicity of the batteries and their expense of production .... it looks like, with investment, it's now *possible* to scale this up globally - which it was not before. I think just the existence of this tech removes some key risk components of the electric-lithium play.

Roxana's Book Deal

2009-04-15T09:20:00.001-07:00

A reporter from Iran comes to America, operates without press credentials for 2 years and is later arrested for buying illegal substances. Because of his working status, he is detained without trial for a while, and then subjected to a closed-door hearing.

Will he get national press and a book deal? Will presidents and pundits pine for his release? It happens over and over in one form or another, really, it's not even news anymore. U.S. jails, offshore prisons and immigration detentions centers are full of similar cases.

But when the tables are turned and it's a pretty American woman named Roxana.... well, that's just not fair.

No, I'm not saying Iran is right here, far from it. But I am saying that, given how we treat foreigners who work in the U.S. without credentials and buy illegal things, it should come as no surprise.

Vector TD 2 Challenge

2009-04-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

Vector TD and Vector TD 2 are my new favorite TD's.

Why Tower Defense games all the sudden? Blame the customer service rep at Sprint who gave me "unlimited data" for 90 days to "try out" their online services. There was a TD game on the phone, and that brought back a fondness for the genre. Sorry to those of you who became addicted because of my last post and have been emailing me to stop posting new games. This is the *last one!*

Some of the TD high scores posted at candystand are impossible, based the 30% fund excess bonus per level, but mine aren't hacks and I can, after about 3 days of puzzling, get on the "monthly" leaderboard for any level/puzzle combo of both games.

I'm not anywhere near good enough to post my games to Youtube, but here's a challenge ... open to friends and former business associates only, not random internet packet hackers ... register at candystand, tell me your username, and then beat any of my monthly leaderboard games within the next 5 days (that's how long I had) and I'll give you 50 bucks and a picture of me doing something ridiculous (you decide ... not porn).

My name at Candystand is "simulx".

Vector TD 2
Vector is back with six new maps and four different modes.

Obama's New Banking Deregulation

2009-04-05T06:23:00.001-07:00

Barack's turning out to be a very well spoken, intelligent, and *exactly the same* as Bush and Clinton.

Myth 1 & Barack's Solution:

There is a myth that deregulation helps financial markets. This myth caused the current recession. Actually, deregulation allows banks to inflate earnings outlooks and increase leverage.... moving bad results until "later".

Barack just deregulated financial markets further, allowing banks to "invent prices" for assets so they don't look bad on balance sheets. As it is, banks use highly inflated estimates for housing prices, 10%-20% higher than true values. Barack's rule will allow them to put "projected prices" on their books.

Myth 2 & Barack's Solution:

There is a myth that wars make us money and creates jobs. This is a myth. Modern wars take money from taxpayers and blow it up. They are pure waste. (Some have noted that they do reduce unemployment). In the old days we'd annex a colony or take resources to pay for a war. Now we just spend and then spend some more to help rebuild.

Barack's now increasing troop commitments by moving troops to Afghanistan. So, he's still *spending billions on wars we can't afford*. And it doesn't look like that's going to change.

For some, it will be *comforting* that Barack is more of the same. But not for the millions that voted for change. I helped finance his run-up, and I'm not some oddball constituent... actually I'm pretty middle-of the road ... Why is he so disloyal? Why is there no .gov website (as he promised) where I can talk about this stuff and have my concerns assuaged by a well-meaning moderator? I think, at least, we deserve an answer to that.

The "Laughing Fly" Trope

2009-04-04T03:30:00.000-07:00

Somehow while using Google images to search for a picture of a laughing fly, I stumbled across the site tvtropes.org where the discussion Jiggle Physics naturally caught my attention.

"Trope" is a word used to describe a common literary theme, not necessarily with the same negative connotation as a cliche. A cliche can be defined as an "overused trope seen as negative or too obvious".

For example, I would consider using dead parents as a plot excuse for an unsupervised child's "adventure" to be nauseatingly cliche, but somehow most critics still seem to consider it a "valid trope". More generally, this is classified as the parental abandonment trope.

I liked the discussion of Flanderization, in which a character who starts off as subtle evolves towards exaggerated social stereotypes to meet lazy scriptwriting demands.

The site, while juvenile in vibe, is enlightening. It brings to light many of the implanted memes arising from the years I spent watching TV as a kid.

Stubborn Auto Giants Lose Out to Foreign Rivals

2009-03-21T05:23:00.000-07:00

It looks like the first 2 affordable, electric, highway-legal sedans won't be made by Ford, GM or Chrysler, even though they have *more than enough money and resources* to trump their competitors. They've even robbed my tax dollars with the very lobbying our President said he wouldn't abide by.

The first will be the Think City, a 120-mile range, 70mph electric from a Norwegian Company (Think Global). The next one looks like a Chinese car by BYD, with an 80 mile range and 80pmh top speed. Why is it necessary for us to import this stuff?

It's a bit depressing to watch our economy go to crap specifically because of a failure of innovation and creativity. Especially when there were millions of people *paying* GM both *investment* and *tax* dollars to put electrics back on the road.

What's even sadder, is that apparently BYD got investment money from Warren Buffet. I mean, if he's given up on American automakers... it's just time to give up.

Facebook's facelift

2009-03-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

Users of facebook are voting overwhelmingly against the new look. It's a classic case of fixing something that was far from broken. It was actually one of their big selling points (uncluttered, clean look).

If I was the owner of Facebook, I'd be concentrating on new features, like specialized Facebook pages for businesses that have business features, can sell stuff, etc. Or how about the ability to create alternate relationships with people besides "friend", like "business associate", and "family". They could be *competing* with Geni and Linkedin, instead of losing mindshare to them.

Flash Element TD

2009-03-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

Using Google to Analyze English Word Usage

2009-03-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

On Wikipedia, I came across the sentence

'Hash' is the most common name for the mark (#) used in the English-speaking world outside North America. ^{[citation needed]}

I thought... sheesh... you really need a citation for that? I mean... it seems like common sense for anyone who's been to both places. I wouldn't be surprised to see "Wearing a sweater will keep you warm ^{[citation needed]}".

So I decided to use Google to analyze the use of the words "hash" and "number sign". Of course the problem is there's no way to know if people are talking about the "#" on the page.

Fortunately, the word "octothorp" means the same thing in all english speaking countries and can be used to constrain the search.

Among people using the word "octothorp" on a web page, authors in the UK top level domain were more likely to also use the word "hash" (65%), whereas authors
in the US top level domain were about equally likely (48%) (full analysis below). Australian users were also more likely to use the word hash (60%).

So, hypotheses proved? According to Wikipedia, this is original research and is not not acceptable unless I am shown to be an "Expert in the field". What field is that exactly? Word frequency analysis? Wasting time? I've got credentials in both.


"hash" site:.uk octothorpe = 389
"hash" site:.uk octothorp = 155
total:544 63%

"number sign" site:.uk octothorpe = 119
"number sign" site:.uk octothorp = 194
total:313 37%

"hash" site:.us octothorpe = 154
"hash" site:.us octothorp = 44
total:198 48%

"number sign" site:.us octothorpe = 108
"number sign" site:.us octothorp = 116
total:214 52%

"hash" site:.au octothorpe = 87
"hash" site:.au octothorp = 26
total:113 60%

"number sign" site:.au octothorpe = 33
"number sign" site:.au octothorp = 41
total:74 40%

Nokia N-Series + Offline Google Calendar

2009-03-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

Nokia's tablets (N810, N800) are fun. They can make free phone calls, browse the web, and don't require any sort of monthly contracts. But one feature that's lacking is a good combination online/offline calendar.

Google Calendar has support for offline mode via a project called "Google Gears". Google Gears works on the Nokia tablets, but it has some bugs which I would very much like them to help fix.

Google Code has a system for keeping track of what projects and issues are important.

If you have an N-Series tablet, and would like to use Google Calendar even when you're offline, click here and star this issue. With a little bit of prodding, I'm hoping they'll get it out of alpha.

Obama's Annoying me a LOT

2009-03-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

If he was really for change, he would be

- Giving money to Tesla & Miles electric instead of to GM
- Promoting HSAs, instead of HMOs
- Helping Federal Credit Unions instead of Citigroup

He's been throwing good money after bad. And we're paying a huge price ... is there money and political will left for the good ideas that are out there?

Affordable Healthcare Exists, But is Ignored

2009-03-11T12:18:00.000-07:00

HSA plans offer affordable health insurance for all Americans. This is not some sort of joke. Anyone can go out and by a plan for under a $100/month today.

I have an HSA with BCBS and it covers my whole family for $180 a month. I've never had any problems with it and my out-of-pockets have been consistently lower than I expected. Indeed I pay less now with my HSA than I paid with my employer-sponsored insurance!

For a single working person, an HSA plan would cost about $85/month. And most plans cover well visits, prescriptions, etc. They also have affordable dental options.

I don't understand why people think this doesn't exist. All you hear about on the news is how it costs "thousands" a month to get health insurance. No. That's how much it costs to get a "health maintenance plan"... not insurance.

Americans don't need "managed care". What we need is insurance against catastrophic illness. And it's available for a reasonable fee.

Why I like SMX/Perl better than Tomcat or Rails

2009-03-05T07:07:00.000-08:00

I figured out *why* i like SMX for web development and Perl for backend/script development. And *why* I don't like "framework" systems. I don't even like my *own* frameworks. Any time I wrote some "generic way to edit a database table", I regret it later as a waste of time. Thus Rails and Tomcat are colossal wastes of time.

1. Functional programs read like a story. First do this, then that, etc. Framework programs read like a "declaration of purpose". But it can be hard to figure out how that declaration translates to a sequence of actions.

2. Over-encapsulation. "Framework" systems encapsulate everything to the point where a huge part of your time as a developer is spent editing framework configuration files. Thus they tend to be *extremely* path, system and configuration dependent. So, when you update your Tomcat version or confiuration .... everything breaks ungracefully, and it's very difficult to determine what's needed to get it running again. Again, it's a declarative system, without any clear sequence leading from "code to html".

3. When it comes down to "How to I just get it to put the letter X on the screen at point Y"...the framework guy says "you have to override the class by defining it in "/framework/templates/local/hard-to-determine-path.class". And there's no way, by looking at the web page, to see that's what needs to be done. You need to look at framework documentation and configuration to determine *where* everything is declared, and what's needed.

4. The SMX developer says, "look for point Y in the code that outputs the html, and put an X right there". The Perl developer who refuses to "over-object-orient" can usually say the same thing (although perl *allows* you to mess this up). The locations of things are clear because SMX is a *context oriented* language, not *object-oriented*. SMX is constraining to the point where you *have* to write code such that it's possible to "backtrack" to the origin of any given output string. Bascially... you can't obfuscate things unless you're doing it on purpose.

ABC Lies About "Bush Abortion Rule", Needs Ad Revenue

2009-02-28T03:24:00.000-08:00

Some headlines read "White House set to reverse health care conscience clause", but at ABC, it's "Obama to Rescind Bush Abortion Rule". Ouch! Did he really do that?

No, there is no "Bush Abortion Rule". It was a horribly worded, vague "provider conscience rule", as properly worded by responsible news agencies that aren't out to garner ad revenues by stirring up controversy. Times are tough, we know, and ABC's revenues are being hit hard.

Under Bush's rule, you could refuse treatment to someone for being Mexican. Or you could refuse treatment to someone who had a drug addiction problem, because they were "icky". Or you could refuse to give a girl a subscription to a contraceptive pill because your uncle has plans for her. It was a bad, bad law.

Under Obama's new plan, providers will still be able to refuse abortions and other "morally difficult" procedures. However, specifically, *providing contraception* will not be optional. There are also provisions for no refusal based on the lifestyle choice, race and sex of the patient. In other words, if a girl wants to go on the pill, a doctor can't say "no" or lie to her and say it will make her sick.

Calling it the "Bush Abortion Rule" speaks to ABC's intention to stir up controversy. Are revenues hurting that bad?

IPC::Lite

2009-02-19T09:50:00.000-08:00

Made a new perl module that creates persistent or are "shared" variables in perl.

Born out of a frustration with my previous "lexical variable" fiasco.

The module prevents that sort of bug by "globbing" all declarations in one easy syntax. While this is a bad idea for big complex projects (I provide a more standard "tie" for those), it is perfect for little CGI scripts.

One line of code...

use IPC::Lite qw(%shared);

And that %shared hash becomes persistent, shared across processes and even thread-safe.

Why Nationalize Banks

2009-02-18T19:28:00.000-08:00

If any company is "too big to fail", it should be *immediately* nationalized. That being said, I don't think Citicorp *is* too big to fail. But *if* it is, it must not be a private company.

I have said this before, but now the big guys are talking about it, so I'm saying it again? Was Bernake reading my Facebook again?

Easier than Recaptcha, until they steal my code

2009-02-12T11:45:00.000-08:00

Looking at the logs, it's clear my site captcha.cc is being "scoped" by the folks over at recaptcha (no link on purpose). Mostly because it's faster, better and cleaner than the junk they peddle. I'm serious, they really overblow their solution, they even managed to get their flim-flam published in a science journal, which really devalues the journal IMHO.

So now, burdened with a ridiculous API, they are sniffing up our solution and going "oh! signatures, digests, why didn't we think of that!".

I may not have a PHD, but I'm a better coder than that whole tank full of idea-stealers put together.

Busy muddling over at the USPTO right now, but hey, where did I put that extra $1000 for a lawyer? Hmm.