Alang is a small stretch of beach along the coast of India where a surprising number of ships are eventually scrapped. Instead of a dry dock, the ships are rammed full speed into the oily beach, then are picked over by workers for scrap. There are 35,000 men ripping apart the things with hammers and sledges. The welders use oxygen and cooking propane, the most skilled of them getting the choice assignment of ventilating fuel tanks to get rid of the fumes (yes, the welders ventilate the explosive fumes). The place is a filthy mess of pollution and there's an estimated fatality a day. By all estimates, it's basically Hell on Earth.
I read about this in an article in the Atlantic Monthly (Aug 2000). The piece detailed the horrible conditions, the economic motivation (wrecking a ship filled with toxic waste is an expensive proposition here in the West), and the efforts of enviromental groups to put a stop to it. But the real eye opener was the reaction of the Indians.
Many were pissed that the industrialized world wanted to stop the wrecking and considered such efforts hypocritical. They are not stupid and they know the risks they're facing. They are more than willing to take those risks for steady, reliable income. Many of them point to the pollution and conditions in Dehli that are worse than at Alang. They laugh at what concerns Greenpeace in their tidy offices in London and Holland.
Do I think it's wrong to ship toxic waste to these countries instead of taking care of it at home? Yes. Should I condemn people who are not really that much different from Americans during the Depression from trying to get by? No. These things are never black and white.
[/rant]
PS: I have heard that some regulation has come to Alang and other wrecking operations of late, so my Atlantic Monthly article is likely out of date. Apologies in advance. Also, I found two stories online about the issue: in Wired and The Baltimore Sun. I have not read them all the way through, though, and highly recommend the dead tree version of the Monthly piece if you can find it.
Re:Boon for the third world... sorta
on
Solar Surgery
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Actually, I've heard this argument before and crunched some numbers after hearing a story on NPR about modern philanthropy. He's well behind the number one philanthropist, a guy who is driven to spend as much of his few hundred million on charity (he was running around 50% of his income into causes every year). Gates ranked number three, giving a couple of percent (I can't remember the exact number but it was not "$3 a year") of his income each year. (And,yes, I only count income - I wouldn't expect anyone to give an anual percentage of their assets)
My reaction was like yours... then I looked at my own giving. I don't go to church, so I don't put money in the plate every week like my folks did. I give stuff to Goodwill and gave my old Honda to Red Cross last year, but in truth that's just to get rid of clutter around the house. Yeah, I buy girl scout cookies, and susbscribe to PBS, but those are hardly acts of philanthropy in my book, 'cause I'm getting a tangible, immediate gain. Occasionally I cut a check to a charity, but it really isn't that much. Looking at my tax returns, it was well under 1%.
The fact is, I believe my giving is representative of most Americans who don't regularly go to church or temple or are intimately involved with a specific charity (little league coach, etc). He's giving a larger slice than many people are and he's putting it towards a very sensible cause with the vaccines (and, no, I don't defend him giving Windows away in the schols, so don't harp on that). Even if Bill is just giving 5% for the tax write off, who am I to judge him?
The moral: You can condemn Gates on any number of issues, bith as a businessman and a technologist, but he's a lot more complex than the simple good/evil labels we humans love so much.
Boon for the third world... sorta
on
Solar Surgery
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
So, as I understand it, we're talking about a laser analoge that needs no electrical infrastructure, should require little or no maintenance, and should be relatively cheap to mass produce. For certain procedures, this will be a real boon for poor countries.
There are limits, though. The thing that a laser is real good for is high precision procedures (think Lasik) that will still require all the infrastructure to operate robotic machinery (computer, electrical power, etc.) Also, the big health issue in real poor countries is access to sanitation, trained health care workers, and vaccines (on that last, say what you will about Bill Gates, but he recognizes his philanthropy is better spent on vaccines than PDAs and gizmos for third world hospitals - the knee juerk techno solution I would've lunged at).
Still, this is a great development. Will it completely change health care in poor coutnries? No. But it is another (very useful) tool in the toolbox for health care in poor countries.
Actually, I reread the story for the first time in a long time and had forgotten that the Onion had thought of that - they have old Bill buying up Sanskrit and ancient Greek parchments.
While the notion of a single ID card issued by the federal (US) government makes me instinctively cringe, the fact is that anyone who thinks it would erode civil liberties further is kidding themselves.
Our rights are already eroded. Blame the IT revolution.
Any law enforcement agency (or unscrupulous third party) has always been able to gather all the info you'd see on a national ID on a person from different sources and build a "virtual ID" file for them. Back when the whole world used paper records, the process was too impractical to be done wholesale (not that that stopped people from trying). With electronic records, it became quite doable (what do you think a background check or credit check is?). A national ID would simply make it easier to snoop on a person by setting up a "one stop shop."
America needs to wake up and be proactive on this issue. We need to protect civil liberties through establishment and enforcement of universal privacy standards rather than the patchwork of laws throughout our states. We're been living in a Fools Paradise for years, assuming that just because our data was scattered all over the place that it was protected (a twist on the "security through obscurity" belief). Fifty years ago it was only J. Edgar Hoover that had the resources to root out our secrets in all those paper records. All that computers (and now, a proposed national ID) have done is lower the bar for those with less manpower... if no less scruples.
My representative in congress is Ed Royce, who also happens to be the chairman of the
House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on Africa. I went to D.C. a few years back to do the tourist thing and met with him for a few minutes (basically, shook his hand and got a snapshot). When I mentioned my concern about Conflict Diamonds and indicated I had seen a resolution he'd authored mentioned in the paper he was absolutely floored - he honestly thought no one in his district cared one way or the other. While I doubt he would have changed U.S. policy at my urging (and he can only steer policy for the House - not the Senate or [more importantly] the Dept. of State), he did indeed listen to me.
If you care about this issue, one way or the other, I suggest contacting Rep. Royce (above) or Susan E. Rice, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs (sorry - bio only - no contact info on that page) and let them know.
I know that most people today tend to be cynical, the truth is that politicians do indeed listen to the people they represent - they have relections to worry about, if nothing else. That's how democracy works.
P.S. If you're going to D.C., make a point of visiting your representative and senator, even if only for the photo op. Their offices regularly get access and tours for constituents that travel to D.C. Also, the officials really do enjoy meeting with the people they represent. They don't get into that line of work unless they love pressing the flesh and meeting new people.
...the studio "suits" who already try to dumb down a movie before it's in the can ("I love what you've done here, Quentin, but do we have to have a heroin overdose in the movie? Maybe she just gets a hangover. Speaking of which, I want to talk to you about this placement deal we have with Segrams...").
Directors are as flawed as any humans, and plenty of them see no problem at selling out their particular "artistic vision", but I really gotta feel sorry for any of them who actually tries to stand up to a studio today.
I'm also seeking 600 acres of abandoned land, preferably in Orange County, California. With the average new home running over $500K in my zip code, I might just be able to pay off my Mastercard bill.
(And, no, there's no way I could possibly move into my neighborhoood today - so don't ask to borrow any money, OK?).
I live close enough to Disneyland to hear the fireworks every night. Got a pass to it and California Adventure. The later is actually kinda fun and I'd be willing to pay, say, $15 for a day there. The shame is that they want $45.
At $45 it absolutely sucks. Everyone knows it. No one goes there. On slow days last year they've had as few as fifteen paying guests on site, meaning the employees outnumbered them by a few orders of magnitude.
Disney pumped tons of money into developing CA and their marketting types put almost as much into advertising. Fact is, though, that it is a failure in it's current form and no amount of marketting money is gonna turn it around. (Disney is getting on the stick and adding a ton of rides this Fall, but we'll have to see how it goes)
The moral? I agree with you that it is inevitable that someone will eventually use this to try to promote a dog of a product. It won't do them any good. To paraphrase Field of Dreams: "Build it, but if it sucks, they still won't come"
You're probably right about Stalin using the quote, even though I heard it in context of the Swiss army. Fact is, a quote that handy has probably been recycled a few millions times. Kinda makes you wonder who started it...
"Every Neanderthal encampment has a bunch of alpha males in it..."
'Could lead to all kinds of weirdness. Case in point...
Bob: "So, you really like that tiny phone?" Ted: "It's fantastic. It's so light I barely notice I'm wearing it. I bought it right after that horrible stuff in New York." Bob: "You mean the nine-eleven attacks?" Ted: "Yeah, although I hear you're supposed to call them 'nine-one-one.'" Alice (911 Operator): "Hello. Please tell me what the nature of the emergency is." Bob: "Hey, aren't you wearing your phone now?" Ted: "uh-oh..." Alice: "Sir, abusing the Emergency Response line is *not* funny..."
(And I won't even get into what happens if you badmouth an ex by name while wearing one... although 911 might come in handy)
I'm announcing a new project, ADAM 2.0. Think of it as GNOME, but taller. I'll need a team of designers, developers, and unit testers. Recombinant DNA experience a plus. Naturally, I'll be team leader - don't all team leaders (open source and otherwise) think they're God anyway?
The only thing that worries me is the six day schedule to ship...
Re:No sanctuary - a waste of a gunnery platform
on
HavenCo Doing Well
·
· Score: 2
As I recall, the interview (PBS? Can't remember) only mentioned the Tibetan exile government as a non commercial client (and Sealand, naturally, would not confirm nor deny). As with commercial ventures, though, placing those records on Sealand was of no real value, since a file cabinet in London would've been just as far out of Bejing's juristiction as Sealand was. For a company interesting in slippery actions, the officers would still have to find a country without extradition treaties that apply to them. If you did find such a paridise, then why not just keep the records with you?
As to Mr. Lay, his people were a lot smarter than the Sealand clients. Instead of actively hiding evidence ("No, your honor, I refuse to hand over the data" "Baliff, throw this bastard in a cell"), they destroyed the evidence. The damage is done and any punishment, no matter how richly deserved, is just that - punishment. To actively stand in the path of the court's primary mission, the discovery of information in the pursuit of justice, is an entirely differnet matter. It's the difference between shooting the bird at a freight train's engineer from an embankment and flicking him off while standing in front of a moving train.
You make a very good point about non-commercial ventures, though. If anyone were to stand up and get tossed in the clink for obstruction, it'd be more likely someone who worked for the Dali Lama, not Ken Lay.
No sanctuary - a waste of a gunnery platform
on
HavenCo Doing Well
·
· Score: 1, Troll
A story about Sealand's data haven gimmick a while ago interviewed an international law attorney about it. He pointed out that the concept of a data haven is basically bunk. Even if the soverignity of the site is recognized (hardly guarenteed) and out of the juristiction of a government, the officers of a corporation or group are not.
So what if Sealand claims it will only hand over data if the client orders it? A court merely needs to toss those clients into jail for contempt, sieze their assets, and make life difficult for a while. Eventually they'll give the order to the data haven to make good.
I guess it comes down to the chemist's definition of fuel (I'm not one, but I guess I adopted that role in my post) and the logistics (or systems engineer, maybe) definition. A chemist would define fuel as "a comsumable used in flight that contains energy". Someone concerned with logistics/systems engineering would use "fuel" as a blanket term to describe any consumable used to produce the energy - fuel, oxidizer, reaction mass, etc.
Again, I understand where you're coming from, but it all depends on your definition, which in turn depends on your viewpoint (and, no, I'm not going to dust off my copy of Websters on this one).
...and I did warn everyone in the title that it was a "nit" to begin with.;)
You know, for a few hundred dollars I'll send you the blueprints for a water powered airplane I got from an old issue of Popular Mechanics. Uses the same technology that UFOs used to build the Pyramids, as a matter of fact.
...heats up a droplet of acrylic
polymer or water on its surface which acts as fuel...
Actually, it's be reaction mass, not fuel. The water/polymer itself isn't releasing energy to propel the plane. The laser provides the energy to power a state change (liquid to gas) which pushes the sucker along.
I think the "fuel" (liquid cessium??) in an ion engine is the same way, providing reaction mass while the real energy is from the electrical source.
I've written a couple of things for Dragon in the past. While developing a gaming product is quite different, I like that the staff was very professional (with the exception of a single member of the editorial staff who shall remain nameless), they paid on acceptance, and the checks never bounced -- all of which are questionable when dealing with other F/SF magazines. They paid out about $400 for a 8K word article (which took about 40K of rewrites to do - about $1/hour). I also like that Dave Gross is very quick turning around EMAILed article queries - perhaps a week or two is the longest I ever waited. That's greased lighting in the publishing biz, my friends.
One thing to remember, though, is that unlike conventional publishers, game houses like WoTC buy all rights forever. That means you loose all control. It's not that big a deal (heck, you're being paid) but it sometimes irks me that I can't post my stuff at my site.
If you're interested it pitching something to Dragon, read the submission guidelines and come up with a half dozen ideas. Then EMAIL Dave with the ideas. You might go through twenty or thirty ideas before coming up with a winner, but once he sees something he likes you can get down to scribbling.
Good luck!
*Everything* gets archived on the Internet...
on
Remembering the BBS
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Check out textfiles.com for dumps of a lot of old BBS stuff. I stumbled across it while looking for documentation on the XMODEM (yes, xmodem) protocol.
There was a sidebar on the story that indicates that the Star Tours ride at Disney World would be retrofitted to include prequel characters. While I don't like tinkering with the original films, this might actually be a good idea for the ride, but not because of the characters.
When Star Tours first hit Disneyland, I thought it was a great idea, since the big hype was the ability to change films and freshen up the ride regularly. Well, it's been something like ten years and the ride is dusty, poorly maintained, and they still haven't tried to put a new film in the thing. If it takes having the shuttle land on top of Jar Jar to freshen up what's otherwise a great ride, so be it. It is a shame, though, that they (Disney/Lucus) has this ability to change out the films and they never bothered with it.
Slashdot Mirror
D'ho! Kudos to SirDude for catching this first. Also for finding the online version of the Atlantic piece.
Alang is a small stretch of beach along the coast of India where a surprising number of ships are eventually scrapped. Instead of a dry dock, the ships are rammed full speed into the oily beach, then are picked over by workers for scrap. There are 35,000 men ripping apart the things with hammers and sledges. The welders use oxygen and cooking propane, the most skilled of them getting the choice assignment of ventilating fuel tanks to get rid of the fumes (yes, the welders ventilate the explosive fumes). The place is a filthy mess of pollution and there's an estimated fatality a day. By all estimates, it's basically Hell on Earth.
I read about this in an article in the Atlantic Monthly (Aug 2000). The piece detailed the horrible conditions, the economic motivation (wrecking a ship filled with toxic waste is an expensive proposition here in the West), and the efforts of enviromental groups to put a stop to it. But the real eye opener was the reaction of the Indians.
Many were pissed that the industrialized world wanted to stop the wrecking and considered such efforts hypocritical. They are not stupid and they know the risks they're facing. They are more than willing to take those risks for steady, reliable income. Many of them point to the pollution and conditions in Dehli that are worse than at Alang. They laugh at what concerns Greenpeace in their tidy offices in London and Holland.
Do I think it's wrong to ship toxic waste to these countries instead of taking care of it at home? Yes. Should I condemn people who are not really that much different from Americans during the Depression from trying to get by? No. These things are never black and white.
[/rant]
PS: I have heard that some regulation has come to Alang and other wrecking operations of late, so my Atlantic Monthly article is likely out of date. Apologies in advance. Also, I found two stories online about the issue: in Wired and The Baltimore Sun. I have not read them all the way through, though, and highly recommend the dead tree version of the Monthly piece if you can find it.
My reaction was like yours... then I looked at my own giving. I don't go to church, so I don't put money in the plate every week like my folks did. I give stuff to Goodwill and gave my old Honda to Red Cross last year, but in truth that's just to get rid of clutter around the house. Yeah, I buy girl scout cookies, and susbscribe to PBS, but those are hardly acts of philanthropy in my book, 'cause I'm getting a tangible, immediate gain. Occasionally I cut a check to a charity, but it really isn't that much. Looking at my tax returns, it was well under 1%.
The fact is, I believe my giving is representative of most Americans who don't regularly go to church or temple or are intimately involved with a specific charity (little league coach, etc). He's giving a larger slice than many people are and he's putting it towards a very sensible cause with the vaccines (and, no, I don't defend him giving Windows away in the schols, so don't harp on that). Even if Bill is just giving 5% for the tax write off, who am I to judge him?
The moral: You can condemn Gates on any number of issues, bith as a businessman and a technologist, but he's a lot more complex than the simple good/evil labels we humans love so much.
There are limits, though. The thing that a laser is real good for is high precision procedures (think Lasik) that will still require all the infrastructure to operate robotic machinery (computer, electrical power, etc.) Also, the big health issue in real poor countries is access to sanitation, trained health care workers, and vaccines (on that last, say what you will about Bill Gates, but he recognizes his philanthropy is better spent on vaccines than PDAs and gizmos for third world hospitals - the knee juerk techno solution I would've lunged at).
Still, this is a great development. Will it completely change health care in poor coutnries? No. But it is another (very useful) tool in the toolbox for health care in poor countries.
Good catch anyways!
At least the Onion had intended the humor...
Our rights are already eroded. Blame the IT revolution.
Any law enforcement agency (or unscrupulous third party) has always been able to gather all the info you'd see on a national ID on a person from different sources and build a "virtual ID" file for them. Back when the whole world used paper records, the process was too impractical to be done wholesale (not that that stopped people from trying). With electronic records, it became quite doable (what do you think a background check or credit check is?). A national ID would simply make it easier to snoop on a person by setting up a "one stop shop."
America needs to wake up and be proactive on this issue. We need to protect civil liberties through establishment and enforcement of universal privacy standards rather than the patchwork of laws throughout our states. We're been living in a Fools Paradise for years, assuming that just because our data was scattered all over the place that it was protected (a twist on the "security through obscurity" belief). Fifty years ago it was only J. Edgar Hoover that had the resources to root out our secrets in all those paper records. All that computers (and now, a proposed national ID) have done is lower the bar for those with less manpower... if no less scruples.
Beer cooler and/or snack bowl
If you care about this issue, one way or the other, I suggest contacting Rep. Royce (above) or Susan E. Rice, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs (sorry - bio only - no contact info on that page) and let them know. I know that most people today tend to be cynical, the truth is that politicians do indeed listen to the people they represent - they have relections to worry about, if nothing else. That's how democracy works.
P.S. If you're going to D.C., make a point of visiting your representative and senator, even if only for the photo op. Their offices regularly get access and tours for constituents that travel to D.C. Also, the officials really do enjoy meeting with the people they represent. They don't get into that line of work unless they love pressing the flesh and meeting new people.
Directors are as flawed as any humans, and plenty of them see no problem at selling out their particular "artistic vision", but I really gotta feel sorry for any of them who actually tries to stand up to a studio today.
(And, no, there's no way I could possibly move into my neighborhoood today - so don't ask to borrow any money, OK?).
At $45 it absolutely sucks. Everyone knows it. No one goes there. On slow days last year they've had as few as fifteen paying guests on site, meaning the employees outnumbered them by a few orders of magnitude.
Disney pumped tons of money into developing CA and their marketting types put almost as much into advertising. Fact is, though, that it is a failure in it's current form and no amount of marketting money is gonna turn it around. (Disney is getting on the stick and adding a ton of rides this Fall, but we'll have to see how it goes)
The moral? I agree with you that it is inevitable that someone will eventually use this to try to promote a dog of a product. It won't do them any good. To paraphrase Field of Dreams: "Build it, but if it sucks, they still won't come"
"Every Neanderthal encampment has a bunch of alpha males in it..."
The Swiss (whose military expenditure per capita match the US) have a saying:
Every country has an army in it. We just figure it might as well be ours here.
'Could lead to all kinds of weirdness. Case in point...
Bob: "So, you really like that tiny phone?"
Ted: "It's fantastic. It's so light I barely notice I'm wearing it. I bought it right after that horrible stuff in New York."
Bob: "You mean the nine-eleven attacks?"
Ted: "Yeah, although I hear you're supposed to call them 'nine-one-one.'"
Alice (911 Operator): "Hello. Please tell me what the nature of the emergency is."
Bob: "Hey, aren't you wearing your phone now?"
Ted: "uh-oh..."
Alice: "Sir, abusing the Emergency Response line is *not* funny..."
(And I won't even get into what happens if you badmouth an ex by name while wearing one... although 911 might come in handy)
Did I say "ADAM"? Er, uh, I meant "ADIM." Honest.
The only thing that worries me is the six day schedule to ship...
As to Mr. Lay, his people were a lot smarter than the Sealand clients. Instead of actively hiding evidence ("No, your honor, I refuse to hand over the data" "Baliff, throw this bastard in a cell"), they destroyed the evidence. The damage is done and any punishment, no matter how richly deserved, is just that - punishment. To actively stand in the path of the court's primary mission, the discovery of information in the pursuit of justice, is an entirely differnet matter. It's the difference between shooting the bird at a freight train's engineer from an embankment and flicking him off while standing in front of a moving train.
You make a very good point about non-commercial ventures, though. If anyone were to stand up and get tossed in the clink for obstruction, it'd be more likely someone who worked for the Dali Lama, not Ken Lay.
So what if Sealand claims it will only hand over data if the client orders it? A court merely needs to toss those clients into jail for contempt, sieze their assets, and make life difficult for a while. Eventually they'll give the order to the data haven to make good.
Again, I understand where you're coming from, but it all depends on your definition, which in turn depends on your viewpoint (and, no, I'm not going to dust off my copy of Websters on this one).
...and I did warn everyone in the title that it was a "nit" to begin with. ;)
*GRIN*
Actually, it's be reaction mass, not fuel. The water/polymer itself isn't releasing energy to propel the plane. The laser provides the energy to power a state change (liquid to gas) which pushes the sucker along.
I think the "fuel" (liquid cessium??) in an ion engine is the same way, providing reaction mass while the real energy is from the electrical source.
One thing to remember, though, is that unlike conventional publishers, game houses like WoTC buy all rights forever. That means you loose all control. It's not that big a deal (heck, you're being paid) but it sometimes irks me that I can't post my stuff at my site.
If you're interested it pitching something to Dragon, read the submission guidelines and come up with a half dozen ideas. Then EMAIL Dave with the ideas. You might go through twenty or thirty ideas before coming up with a winner, but once he sees something he likes you can get down to scribbling.
Good luck!
Check out textfiles.com for dumps of a lot of old BBS stuff. I stumbled across it while looking for documentation on the XMODEM (yes, xmodem) protocol.
When Star Tours first hit Disneyland, I thought it was a great idea, since the big hype was the ability to change films and freshen up the ride regularly. Well, it's been something like ten years and the ride is dusty, poorly maintained, and they still haven't tried to put a new film in the thing. If it takes having the shuttle land on top of Jar Jar to freshen up what's otherwise a great ride, so be it. It is a shame, though, that they (Disney/Lucus) has this ability to change out the films and they never bothered with it.