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Friday, December 20, 2002
Oil price hits two-year high
Though western strategic oil stocks are probably at their best-ever level, the oil price has started to climb alarmingly. The worry is that supplies will be disrupted by two problems simultaneously - an Iraq war and strikes in Venezuela.
However, for this to really happen the Venezuelan political crisis would have to keep going for months. Because Venezuela is located much closer to its major markets than the middle east is, once exports resume the oil can be got to customers in a matter of days.
Analysis from Reuters and from Forbes.
News from Venezuela (weirdly translated by Google).
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Friday, November 22, 2002
China: boom or bust?
Red Herring has some good articles about China, including two that put the case for boom and bust scenarios.
Intro: technology companies are dashing to China in search of salvation and sales. Red star rising the economy is booming. The coming collapse but on the basis of banking practices, corruption and social division that cannot be sustained.
Red Herring also reports on how big-brand US companies are helping China censor the Internet and track dissidents, and asks what happens to these companies if China guns down workers or starts cracking down on Christian groups.
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Wednesday, November 20, 2002
Tech gloom likely to continue
Because of over-investment in technology in the late 1990s, technology spending is likely to lag even when the US economy picks up, according to Carlos Bonilla, special assistant to President George W. Bush for economic policy. He was speaking at Comdex in Las Vegas, which is the IT industry's most important trade show.
"There is decades' worth of fiber optics out there," he told CNET after the speech. "Elsewhere, there is just a lot of new capital, plant and equipment. As a consequence, (companies) won't feel any great urgency to go and replace it."
CNET headlines its report Bush aide: Tech to lag in U.S. revival. However, looking on the bright side, Comdex's own in-house journal prefers Tech sector on road to recovery, Bonilla says.
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Thursday, November 14, 2002
High civilian death toll likely in Iraqi war
Any war in Iraq is likely to prove fatal to large numbers of the region's civilians, according to a report by UK health charity Medact. In the worst-case scenario, nuclear weapons are fired on Iraq in response to a chemical or biological attack on Kuwait or Israel, leaving nearly four million dead. But even in the best case of a rapid Iraqi surrender 10,000 people would die during the period of hostilities.
One reason Medact expects civilian casualties to be so much higher than in the first Gulf War a decade ago is that the general health of the Iraqi population has deteriorated, making the hardships of war more lethal. The report's authors also think that the risk of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons being used is higher.
Even in a conventional war between 48,000 and 261,000 people can be expected to die on all sides - in the fighting itself and in the period of disruption that follows. If civil war breaks out things get worse for Iraqis - according to Medact around 375,000 would die. And if the war goes nuclear ten times that number would end up dead - Medact puts the likely nuclear death toll at 3,900,000.
main conclusions in graphical form (pdf format)
full report
New Scientist coverage with more links.
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Wednesday, October 16, 2002
Crop circles of the year
Photographer Steve Alexander has images of many of this year's best crop circles on his web site. Crop circles are patterns that mysteriously appear overnight in the fields, particularly in southern England. Since the patterns are destroyed when the crops are harvested the 2002 season is now over.
Crop circles are made by people rather than aliens, but for me that detracts little from their appeal. They are certainly a very effective form of public art. How to make a crop circle explains how it is done. Because this art takes place outside the usual gallery system it needs something to give it a special aura, and alien weirdness performs the function perfectly.
The small amount of money required comes from the circle makers themselves, or - indirectly or directly, from the media and marketeers. The Circlemakers site has some details on some of this year's known sponsored projects.
Circle enthusiasts who prefer more exotic theories can find support on Mark Fussell & Stuart Dike's Crop Circle Connnector site, which has more good 2002 images.
I've also been looking at a great selection of images of crop circles from previous years, taken by Steve Patterson. My favourite is this one next to Avebury in Wiltshire. Avebury is a much more atmospheric place than Stonehenge, probably because it's so low key. The standing stones are completely muddled up with the village, and you can just wander around them.
Good background articles:
Washington Post Fertile Imaginations: The Real Story of Those Mysterious Circles Runs Rings Around the Movie
The Observer Hollywood falls under crop circles' spell
Fortean Times Leaders in the field
National Geographic Crop Circles: Artworks or Alien Signs?
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Saturday, October 05, 2002
Why America needs the oil
More than 20 million Americans are driving gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles (SUVs), and the number is rising fast. These large four-wheel drive vehicles have been the great success story of the US auto industry over the last decade, and while ordinary cars have been getting steadily more fuel efficient, the switch to SUVs is a move in the opposite direction.
In a new book Keith Bradsher argues that this is bad news for both energy consumption and people's safety. The vehicles are heavy, aerodynamically inefficient and consume more fuel than the cars they are replacing. US models are often based on pickup truck components, and do between 14 and 25 miles per gallon. There's a long extract from High and Mighty: SUVs the World's Most Dangerous Vehicles here.
According to Bradsher "the replacement of cars with SUVs is currently causing close to 3,000 needless deaths a year in the United States - as many people annually as died in the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. Roughly 1,000 extra deaths occur each year in SUVs that roll over, compared to the expected rollover death rate if these motorists had been driving cars. About 1,000 more people die each year in cars hit by SUVs than would occur if the cars had been hit by other cars. And up to 1,000 additional people succumb each year to respiratory problems because of the extra smog caused by SUVs."
What's more, Bradsher expects the number of SUVs to double in the next few years simply on demographic grounds. Since SUVs are a new product category most of the vehicles out there are still quite new. But as their owners replace them, cheap second-hand SUVs become available, enabling growing numbers of less-affluent Americans to get their hands on the oil-burning monsters.
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Thursday, October 03, 2002
Weblog authors won't make money
Weblogs are producing a mass amateurisation of publishing, according to Clay Shirky, rather than a mass of new publishing professionals. Very few people will make money out of being a weblog author, at least not directly. Shirky compares it to the paradox of oxygen and gold. "Oxygen is more vital to human life than gold, but because air is abundant, oxygen is free. Weblogs make writing as abundant as air, with the same effect on price."
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Wednesday, October 02, 2002
Blondes get a reprieve
Blondes aren't about to become extinct after all - at least there's been no authoritative new research to that effect, despite widespread reports to the contrary. The story is now International media caught by dumb blonde joke, to give the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's version of events.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer asks how the extinction story went unchecked. The Washington Post is going for a similar angle, following yesterday's press briefing at the UN, which said:
"WHO [the World Health Organisation] corrected erroneous news reports stating that WHO has conducted a study predicting the extinction of the naturally blonde hair gene by 2202. WHO has never issued a report on nor conducted research on the subject." There isn't anything on the World Health Organisation's own site yet.
At least the BBC treated the original story with some scepticism. It quoted an Edinburgh University academic who disagreed with the alleged report. "Genes don't die out unless there is a disadvantage of having that gene or by chance. They don't disappear," Professor Jonathan Rees told BBC News Online. "The frequency of blondes may drop but they won't disappear."
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Tuesday, October 01, 2002
3,000 languages headed for extinction
At least a quarter and possibly as many as three-quarters of the 6,000 or so languages now spoken on Earth will disappear over the coming century. Every two weeks a language becomes extinct as the last person to speak it dies without passing it on, according to Lost for Words, a BBC radio series.
The series is currently going out on one of the BBC's domestic radio channels on Wednesday mornings (Radio 4, 11am). But the three 30-minute episodes can also be accessed in real audio format at the BBC web site, where there is also a lot of background material about the languages of Europe.
The first episode dealt with the disappearing languages of Australia and what is being done to save them. The second episode, dealing with Hawaii, is being transmitted later today. The final episode next week will consider whether it really matters.
The Australian material was very interesting. One contributor pointed out that 'You can't save the language without saving the people', and another that the health of indigenous languages can serve as an indicator of other social and environmental changes.
Apparently in Australia stories told in the local aboriginal languages served as maps as well as myths, guiding people to sources of water as well as telling them how to behave. So when the language goes people feel lost.
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Sunday, September 22, 2002
US adopts first-strike strategy
In future the US is going to be more prepared to shoot first and go it alone without allies, according to a strategy statement presented by president Bush to congress on Friday. Pre-emptive military strikes, previously regarded by the US itself as against international law except in very limited circumstances, are now seen as legitimate in many more cases. More on this development over at my other blog Uncertain Futures.
Meanwhile the way the war in Iraq is fought may be effected by a shortage of the US military's preferred smart bomb, according to William Arkin in the Washington Post. The JDAM (joint direct attack munition) is satellite-guided so it can work in all weather, unlike laser-guided weapons. Without them more troops will be needed on the ground. Alternatively, the war might be delayed until stocks of the bomb have built up.
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Thursday, September 19, 2002
Air car makes its debut
Powered by compressed air contained in tanks under the body, Aircar is intended to provide low-cost, pollution-free urban transport.
The company behind it, French-based Motor Development International, claims the vehicle can reach a speed of over 60 miles per hour, and can go for over 120 miles before the tanks need refilling. This takes four hours using the built-in compressor connected to an ordinary domestic electricity supply, but just three minutes using a heavier unit that MDI hopes to sell to filling stations.
Since the major motor companies don't seem to be interested, MDI plans to set up numerous small manufacturing plants run by franchisees. Projected price for the vehicle, which could conceivably be available in the UK next year, is under £6,000. Here's the MIT Technology Review's take on the story.
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Pop fragmenting
Interesting article in Prospect magazine from the drummer of defunct UK art-house band Gay Dad about the problems of the music industry. There's no doubt that turnover worldwide is down, and that the UK industry has got itself into an even deeper crisis. The question is why, and what happens next.
"With the rise of MTV and the internet, many believed that music culture would increasingly homogenise, and every home, be it in Boston, Bordeaux or Bath, would eventually enjoy the same mix of Slipknot, Celine Dion and Robbie Williams. But contrary to expectations, many countries, including Britain, have developed a brand of pop whose appeal is strictly local."
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Africa heads for oil boom
Africa already provides about 15 percent of the United States' crude oil imports, and this is likely to rise to 25 percent within the next 10 years as offshore reserves come on stream, according to an article in the New York Times.
Most of the production comes from sub-Saharan countries that have direct access to the Atlantic, such as Nigeria, Angola and Equatorial Guinea. A new pipeline will link oil fields in landlocked Chad to the ocean.
What the article doesn't discuss is whether the new oil wealth will benefit the ordinary people.
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Wednesday, September 18, 2002
War could cost London £1 billion
London's bill for toppling Saddam Hussein could be at least £1 billion, according to a report issued by the Mayor's office.
In the Gulf War of 1991 the most severe impact on London was the loss of US visitors too scared to fly. Numbers were down by 30 percent. If the same thing happens this time, the report puts the cost to London at over £1 billion in lost tourism revenue, with a possible loss of over 45,000 jobs.
Military developments, confidence in the financial markets and oil price levels are harder to predict than tourist behaviour, but could be decisive. A prolonged war, loss of confidence in the financial markets or a large oil price rise could push the economy into recession.
The full report 'A future gulf war - its potential economic impact on London' (PDF) is on the end of this newsletter about the London economy.
Author Bridget Rosewell does mention some plus factors. This time US tourist numbers are already down in the wake of 9/11, so it's possible an Iraq war won't have such a noticeable impact. But on the negative side Rosewell thinks there's more of a risk of a general economic slowdown now. Lack of support for the war means that the wealthy Arab nations and Japan are unlikely to help pay for it, which helped counter recession last time.
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Monday, September 16, 2002
US diplomats doing their job?
It's the job of diplomats to keep their government informed of anything likely to inflame feeling against their country. So presumably diplomats working at the US embassy in London think Londoners will sympathise with their attempts to avoid paying the new fiver-a-day congestion charge that's the centrepiece of a pioneering road-pricing scheme due to go live in February 2003. They obviously think there's no chance anyone will say 'Look - Arrogant Americans, throwing their weight around again'. This is bad timing - and bad diplomacy.
The Guardian's take on the story.
Meanwhile over in Vancouver they are taking a different approach to congestion. They are using an old bridge to deliberately clog up traffic to keep it out of the downtown (city centre) area. But that's because they like bicyles, which can go round the jams. And because they think that only a suicidal politician would try putting a direct price on the use of roads.
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Overlooking worst-case in Iraq.
Just read this comment piece in last week's New York Times - Imagining the Worst-Case Scenario in Iraq. Author Milton Viorst argues that there's a chance that Saddam may pre-emptively invade Saudi Arabia, or launch a chemical, biological or nuclear strike on Israel before the US arrives in force in the region. The weakness in Bush's strategy is that it relies on Saddam behaving in a similar way to last time - which was basically to sit and wait for the US to strike. New York Times access is free but requires registration.
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Thursday, September 12, 2002
w:bloggar is good
Now I've got two futures weblogs going (the other is Uncertain Futures), I can go off-topic more often on this one.
I just started using w:bloggar, something of no interest to anyone except other webloggers. What it lets you do is write items off-line, without being connected to the Internet. You can then upload them later to services like Blogger, Movable Type or Drupal.
I haven't got round to setting it up yet with MT, but I'm using it all the time now with Blogger.
Since I'm normally connnected to the Internet all the time through an ADSL connection, the main purpose of w:bloggar as an off-line loader didn't initially interest me. But what I like is the interface - it's far better than Blogger's own.
What's more, when you use Blogger in the normal way as a hosted web service, there is always some delay, even with ADSL. So w:bloggar - a software tool developed in Brazil, makes things more convenient. It's freeware, BTW.
Must get round to putting thissticker in the right place when I next go to Blogger proper.
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Interesting business model
A Tchibo coffee shop has appeared on my local High Street (Sutton, a suburb nine miles south of central London in the UK).
What's interesting is that it also sells other consumer goods on a rolling basis. Every Wednesday a new set of products organised around a single theme appear in the coffee shop-window. This week it's natural-themed house wares and bedding, next week it's business clothes.
The formula seems quite successful. The products are fairly cheap and once they have gone from the shop they can be bought online or by mail order.
There are two interesting things about this development.
1. Other coffee shops make poor use of their prime retail locations. Tchibo is using the space more effectively.
2. This is business migration. Tchibo has looked at the infrastructure at its disposal, and is using it to move into a different market.
Tchibo is not some innovative small business, but Tchibo Frisch-Röst-Kaffee GmbH, a huge and venerable chain that already has over 60 shops in the UK and some 900 directly-operated outlets in its native Germany.
Indeed, the parent Tchibo Group has plenty of money at the moment, having recently sold its majority stake in Reemtsma, a large German tobacco company.
It's using this war chest to roll out more of the novel coffee shops across Europe. So Tchibo probably isn't scared of Starbucks, which has wiped out smaller coffee shops in my locality.
Just found this review of a Tchibo shop, which describes it as a cross between Starbucks and the Innovations catalogue.
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Wednesday, September 11, 2002
What the US military learned in Afghanistan
The New York Times has interviews with heads of all four US services about what they've learned from Afghanistan [free but registration required].
Briefly:
Integration between army, navy, marines and air force is accelerating - everything is 'joint' now.
The US Marines are turning from an amphibious force into a rapid-reaction expeditionary force that is expected to go far inland.
Precision weapons mean you need a smaller logistics tail - because fewer heavy items need to be transported.
But missions are more complex, and may require the military to switch rapidly from fighting to delivering food.
Troops need to be capable of fighting, policing and negotiating.
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Swiss join UN - but not EU
Switzerland finally joined the United Nations yesterday. It's unlikely to join the European Union in the foreseeable future, according to the Economist - the Swiss people wouldn't approve. But has already become a pseudo-member, with close economic ties.
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Tuesday, September 10, 2002
PC recovery delayed
IDC has changed its estimate of when PC sales will recover from their present stagnant condition. The US research firm doesn't expect a significant improvement until the middle of next year - which is later than its previous prediction.
Businesses continue to postpone PC investments, and consumers aren't coming to the rescue. But PC sales are flat rather than in freefall. IDC expects over 135 million PCs to be shipped worldwide this year. That's up one percent on the year before.
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Why nanotechnology no longer appeals to investors
This article in the new-look, slimline, humbled Red Herring eventually gets round to discussing why VCs are reluctant to invest in nanotechnology. There's a science risk - maybe the idea won't work, and many projects are far too ambitious. Better to attack existing markets from below than try to change the world.
The article makes a good contrast to the usual boosting, which announces some lab breakthrough as if the problems of commercialising it are trivial.
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NEW WEBLOG BRINGS CHANGES TO THIS ONE
I've started a new weblog called Uncertain Futures. It's focused more tightly on emerging trends and techniques for thinking ahead than this one. It also uses a different platform - Movable Type rather than Blogger.
At the moment there's considerable overlap between the blogs, but I intend giving each its own identity.
Uncertain Futures concentrates on the future. It's an out-and-out futures blog, and is all about thinking ahead. It will link to items because of what they can tell us about the future, and for no other reason. I also intend adding more background articles and reference material, and better links to non-weblog sources of information.
New Realities will range more widely and be more personal. It will tend to have shorter items than now, but more of them, and generally be more relaxed and less polished. Nothing is irrelevant as long as it is interesting to me. It will belong more in the weblog community.
Why the change of platform for Uncertain Futures? Partly it's just fun to try something new. But Movable Type's ability to categorise postings was the deciding factor. It allows you to produce a site that's easier to navigate and less of a diary, and so more suitable for material that has some lasting value. MT is very flexible, so you can produce different types of page - for example a list of quotations or a glossary, for which organisation by date of posting makes no sense.
It's been a year since I started weblogging. In that time the number of people producing weblogs has increased enormously. To find an audience I believe weblogs need to become more focused, so people can quickly get an idea of what a particular weblog is about.
On the other hand, I still want a personal weblog in which anything can be included. So that's why I'm both creating a focused futures blog and retaining this one.
Discuss
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Cold starch good anti-cancer agent
Another interesting story from the Leicester conference: apparently it's not the high-fibre that's good for us in high-fibre diets, but the uncooked crystalline starch that is often present in the same foods.
According to Professor John Burn, this form of carbohydrate interacts with the bacteria in the lower gut, producing a chemical that affects the way genes linked to bowel cancer function. The belief that it was the high-fibre itself producing the protective effect was wrong - and an example of experts jumping the gun before a mechanism is properly understood.
To work the starch must also be eaten cold - heating it changes the chemical structure.
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Fat plague here to stay
We're getting fatter in the same way we started getting taller 200 years ago, Professor Andrew Prentice told a science conference in Leicester, England. This change in shape is likely to be permanent. Unfortunately it is not good for us, reducing lifespan so much that today's parents could outlive their increasingly fat children.
"The obesity pandemic is gathering pace rather than slowing down, and current interventions are only marginally effective and very expensive", Prentice told the BBC. Just exhorting people to eat less and take exercise isn't enough to reverse the trend. Only tough measures like changing the transport system to force people to walk are likely to have an impact. Here's the Telegraph's take on the same story.
Meanwhile over in Australia the food industry is lobbying against a proposed snack tax.
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Monday, September 09, 2002
War game reveals danger of group-think
A recent US military simulation of an attack on a middle-eastern country has raised questions about whether war with Iraq will be the walkover that many expect. The scenario used was a US attack on Iran with an 'n', not Iraq, and in 2007 rather than the immediate future. Plenty of things went wrong, including the loss of much of the attacking American fleet, the New York Times reports [free but sign-up required].
The worry is that lessons won't be learned from the exercise, which involved 13,500 people. The New York Times quotes one senior war game commander as saying that slogans and clichés seem to be replacing deep thinking. "General Van Riper said the mood reminded him of the mindset in Vietnam: excessive faith in technology, inadequate appreciation of the fog of war, lack of understanding of the enemy, and simple hubris."
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Sunday, September 08, 2002
Winning social innovations
The Institute for Social Inventions is a philanthropic body based in the UK that encourages people to think up ideas for a better world. It has just announced the winners of its 2002 Social Innovations Awards.
The one I like best is Boomerang Day for returning borrowed items, suggested by Tony Paynter.
He suggests we set aside one day a year to search our homes for things that don't belong to us that we've neglected to return. Boomerang Day would be the day to return them.
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Greek game ban sign of deeper law-and-order problem
In an effort to crack down on illegal gambling the Greek government has banned ALL computer games. This has been the cue for much ridicule and indignation around the world. Tourists are being told to steer clear of Greece, where jackbooted police are supposedly roaming the beaches arresting anyone possessing a mobile phone. Has the Greek government gone mad?
The short answer is no. Computer gamers have simply been caught in the crossfire of an increasingly ugly struggle between the state and organised crime - one that organised crime is winning. The Greek authorities are running out of options - but are still acting fairly rationally.
First all let's get clear exactly what the law says, then look at the wider context. The law does indeed ban all electronic gaming - on PCs, laptops and mobile phones, not just on arcade machines. And yes, it makes it illegal to possess such gaming equipment, even in your home. What's more, tourists are not exempt. The police really could drag you off for having Microsoft Windows (which comes with Solitaire and Minesweeper) on your laptop, or Tetris on your mobile phone.
However, they are not likely to do so. Nor indeed is the law itself likely to stand much longer. It came into force at the end of July, and may already have done its work.
The background to all this is ultimately Greece's geographic position in the unstable Balkans, on Europe's south-east fringe. Greece has land borders with Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the north, and with Bulgaria and Turkey to the east.
Following the Yugoslav and Kosovan conflicts, the northern area has become the base of heavily armed gangs, many of them involved in drug and people trafficking. To the east, the relevant factor is the elimination of the Taliban in Afghanistan, which has been followed by soaring drug production. The traditional routes for Afghan heroin into the prosperous markets of western Europe run through Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece. These routes have revived, now largely under the control of the Kosovan gangs.
This has placed a huge load on Greek police and customs officials, who in the face of organised intimidation and corruption are being overwhelmed. Gambling plays a crucial role because it is not just another profit centre for the criminals, but because it can be used for money laundering.
In this context Greek actions start to make more sense. Tough anti-gaming laws were originally mooted in February, precisely because other measures to crack down on the illegal gambling dens weren't working. Gambling outside of a few defined contexts was already against the law. The point is the police and courts were unable to enforce the law because of intimidation and corruption.
On its way through Greece's parliament the new law was toughened up, giving police essentially the powers to seize anything even-remotely capable of being used for gambling.
Of course the law won't stand. Greece has lawyers, and they know the ban is likely to be struck down on human rights grounds as soon as the first appeal reaches the European Court of Justice. Since Greece is a full European Union member the law would also eventually fall because it clearly clashes with EU competition rules.
But that doesn't stop it being an effective short-term measure. Since July the authorities have been busy - not oppressing Solitaire players and tourists, but shutting down gambling dens.
The current international fuss only started very recently when they turned their attentions to Internet cafes. This posting from Aegean Times, a local group weblog, makes interesting reading.
The Greek Internet Cafe Union are mounting a very effective campaign against the crackdown. Here's their petition - but are you sure you want to sign it? The people of Greece will give their verdict in a couple of week's time when local elections are held.
What does all this say about the future? It doesn't tell us that 'clueless governments don't get the Internet'. That's the knee-jerk take on things. Instead it's a warning of just how far gangsterism and the black economy are getting out of control in Europe.
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Friday, September 06, 2002
Dawn of the age of true self assembly
Most of the media have treated this New Scientist story about intelligent self-assembly furniture as a joke, but it has implications that extend well beyond helping puzzled Ikea customers put together their purchases.
What the team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich has done is fit light-activated sensors to the key components that make up an Ikea wardrobe. When you open the carton the sensors start sending data to a battery-powered microchip built into one of the pieces.
This works out where all the components are in relation to each other, and generates assembly instructions that are sent over a wireless link to a PC. The idea is to make assembly easier and to prevent accidents.
But the same approach could be applied to much larger construction projects, and to problems like the more efficient loading and unloading of ships or containers. Indeed, radio-frequency identity (RFID) chips are already used in the freight transportation industry. With their cost likely to fall to a few pence over the next few years, ultimately every brick, parcel and can of beans could have its chip.
-- More --
At the risk of sounding like a Bruce Sterling fanatic, this is another development prefigured in that thoughtful Science Fiction writer's work. In Distraction (1998) he has this exchange between his main character and a couple of cinder blocks:
"I'm a cornerstone", the cinder block announced.
"Good for you", Oscar grunted.
"I'm a cornerstone. Carry me five steps to your left."
Oscar ignored this demand, and swiftly taped six more blocks. He whipped the scanner across each of them, then pulled the last block aside to get at the next level in the stack.
As he set his gloved hand to it, the last block warned him "Don't install me yet. Install that cornerstone first."
More about the Swiss Smart-Its project.
It's part of the wider EU-funded Disappearing Computer initiative, which is having a big conference at the end of September.
Reuter's version of the story, in case the New Scientist one disappears into its paid-for archive.
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Wednesday, August 28, 2002
Cats and dogs innocent
Far from increasing a baby's chances of developing allergies, early childhood exposure to household pets has a protective effect.
'Exposure to two or more cats or dogs in the house during the first year of life reduces the probability that a child would have any positive skin test to common allergens by about 50 percent', according to US medical researcher Dennis Ownby. He's just done a study tracking almost 500 children. There's a good report in the Boston Globe, with more detail here.
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Friday, August 16, 2002
Mad Cow risk not over
Research published last week suggests the risk of catching variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human form of Mad Cow disease, from blood transfusions is significantly greater than previously supposed. Now British hospitals are to import US blood because of worries that the UK supply may be contaminated.
The blood is to go only to children under six years old. Anyone older than that in the UK may already have been exposed to contaminated food.
So far there have been 122 confirmed cases of vCJD in the UK, six in France, and one in the US. Canada has just had its first confirmed case.
The worry with CJD is that more than ten years into the epidemic there is still not enough information to estimate its eventual scale. It may turn out to be a rare killer, or as common as cancer or heart disease. Unlike these better-understood conditions, vCJD is invariably fatal.
Back in 1992 Bruce Sterling wrote a story called Sacred Cow (Omni Jan 1993). It follows an Indian film crew making Bollywood musicals against the backdrop of a devastated Britain. Following a pandemic of CJD among meat-eaters, India and Japan dominate the world.
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Tuesday, August 13, 2002
More early ID thieves
In the very first book of the Bible Jacob pretends to be his elder brother Esau. His objective is to trick his blind father Isaac into blessing the wrong son. He accomplishes this by dressing in Esau's clothing and taking dinner to his father, a task normally performed by the senior son.
There have been countless stories involving identity theft in the years since. In the 1973 film The Day of the Jackal the assassin played by Edward Fox creates several false identities for himself. On one occasion he steals a passport and alters his appearance to resemble the picture. On another he fools the paper-based bureaucracy of the time into giving him a genuine passport in the name of a long-dead child - by taking details off a gravestone. The film ends without his true identity ever being discovered.
Discuss
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Feds get tough on ID thieves
Or at least they do according to this piece, written by a Fed on an Internet opinion site. His basic point is that new crimes demand new countermeasures - and they are beginning to arrive, with the courts imprisoning more ID thieves.
He may be right. But I'm not sure that the wider perception that new technology automatically makes us more vulnerable is correct. Identity theft (impersonating someone to further a crime) has a long history, and doesn't require computers.
The wolf in Little Red Riding Hood needed only a nightdress to pose as Ms Hood's granny, not advanced computer hacking skills. What makes us vulnerable to deception is the unfamiliar, as this retelling of the classic tale make clear.
One of the roles of fiction is to prepare us for situations we haven't encountered yet. So in the long term storytellers may be as important as judges and police in giving us the ability to survive new threats.
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Thursday, August 01, 2002
British Jews rallying to Israel
Most of Britain's 300,000-strong Jewish community are rallying around Israel, according to the Independent. Even those with misgivings about Israeli policy see now as a time to close ranks.
Discuss
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Army equipment unfit for desert war
In any future desert war the British army could face big problems with its equipment. In a recent exercise in the Gulf, guns jammed, boots melted and radios were useless. Tanks ground to a halt after only a few hours, engines clogged with sand.
The problems are catalogued in a report by the UK's National Audit Office into a two-month long exercise that pitted 22,500 British troops against the desert in Oman last year.
The Independent has a good summary of the equipment failures, while the Telegraph has more background on the shortcoming.
The goverment is seeking to minimise the political fallout by downplaying the problems. The press release announcing the report is a classic of understated spin. But - with war in Iraq looming, more practical steps to provide better equipment are presumably underway.
Discuss
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Tuesday, July 30, 2002
Tiny robots fly in
Scientist are trying to create tiny flying robots the size of insects, reports CNN. Unfortunately the only devices close to insect size that they've built haven't got off the ground yet - currently sheep-size flying robots is as good as it gets.
The problem is that flight at insect scale works on different principles to existing airplanes or helicopters. Though the aerodynamics are becoming better understood, there are still substantial engineering and control problems to sort out.
Predicting precisely when a usable technology will arrive is difficult in these circumstances. Breakthoughs are required in several fields before flying micro bots become a reality.
CNN reports that spying, space exploration and clearing up chemical spills are the sort of application envisaged for the devices. They clearly haven't been reading enough Philip K Dick. These things are just as likely to find employment as advertising robots, with the potential to be far more annoying than today's two-dimensional popups.
Discuss
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Monday, July 29, 2002
Perils of prediction
Many predictions turn out wrong. This is particularly true of attempts to look more than five or ten years into the future. Here's a wonderful sequence of images from Horizons, an attraction at EPCOT in Florida closed by Disney Corporation in 1999. It contains a vision of a future filled with cities under the sea and robots doing the vacuum cleaning. Who knows, maybe it will still happen, but now it all seems charmingly dated.
Even more dated, but with flashes of brilliant insight, is this sequence of images by Albert Robida (1848-1926). Robida is interesting not just for what he gets right, but for exactly how he goes wrong.
In a work published in 1883 he's spot on about the importance communications would have for our world, but can only envisage it done via wires (Marconi's key demonstration of radio didn't happen until 1901). Nonetheless, this didn't stop him predicting television, and even some of the ways we use TV.
As a footnote, Walt Disney's own plans for EPCOT didn't turn out as he intended. It was originally going to be a place of real science - Experimental Project: Community of Tomorrow, not a theme park, as Jerry Pournelle explains.
Discuss
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Sunday, July 28, 2002
Popcorn predictions
Came across these 16 trend predictions made by New York-based futurist Faith Popcorn. They were probably made about five years ago to go with her book 'Clicking', but it is interesting to see how many are still valid.
I reckon at least 13 - and possibly as many as 15, still hold true. This is very good considering how many other ideas from that era are now in tatters.
Unfortunately the Popcorn prediction I have most serious doubt about is 'Save Our Society', which is all about rediscovering a social conscience and compassion. I don't see much sign of that being on the increase today, either in the US or Europe.
I'm also not so sure about 'Anchoring' and 'Pleasure Revenge'. But the others are all pretty accurate.
Popcorn, as her adopted name suggests, is mainly concerned with consumer behaviour, and is a major corporate marketing guru. Though her language is very American, the great majority of her trend predictions seem to apply across the affluent world.
Discuss
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Saturday, July 27, 2002
Saddam and Sharon
Britain and France have told President Bush that they will now support an attack on Iraq, according to the Guardian. 'Senior officials are saying a sudden military strike could be launched as soon as October.'
Apparently the military is confident it can do the job with a much smaller number of troops than during the Gulf War - despite earlier worries that such an approach would lead to a 'Bay of Goats' disaster.
But what about America's other key ally - Israel. Last time, despite Saddam's best efforts to bring Israel into the war, the Israelis kept a very low profile. But last time Ariel Sharon was not Israel's prime minister.
Sharon may see a new Gulf War as a chance to get rid of his Palestinian problem permanently - by clearing the occupied territories of Arabs. In an article in the Daily Telegraph back in April top military historian Martin van Creveld argued that this is exactly what he is planning.
'Some believe that the international community will not permit such an ethnic cleansing. I would not count on it', van Creveld wrote. 'If Mr Sharon decides to go ahead, the only country that can stop him is the United States.'
Presumably Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac have talked to Bush about Israel's likely response should an attack on Iraq go ahead. What did he say to reassure them?
Discuss
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Friday, July 26, 2002
Snapshots of the web's past
I've just been playing around with the Wayback Machine. It lets you look through a vast historical archive of the whole web going back to 1996.
At over well 100,000 gigabytes the archive is simply too big to offer Google-like search facilities, so you have to know the web address of the site you are looking for. But it can be fun to look at sites you've been associated with in the past and see what you used to think was a good web site.
The archive typically has multiple copies of each site grabbed on many different dates over the years, so you can see how the site has evolved. And with some sites the content itself is still of interest, as it may have disappeared from today's web.
Discuss
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Thursday, July 25, 2002
Betting on the future
I'm amazed that the Flipem site is legal, but apparently it is. It lets you place bets on a wide range of future events, and have the cyber equivalent of betting slips mailed as gifts to people who can then collect real money if they win.
For example, you can bet on the number of commercial jets mothballed in US deserts at the end of August, or on the style of shot that will win the 2002 World Conker Championships. The site is based in London, and benefits from recent relaxation in UK online gambling laws.
In many ways it is reminiscent of the Foresight Exchange, but is a more commercial concept suitable for a dumbed-down age. At the Foresight Exchange, which has been going for at least seven years, no real money changes hands. Instead the point is to see how people expect the future to turn out. This can be gauged directly from the changing odds on the various predictions.
At the even more cerebral Long Bets Foundation, set up last year by Kevin Kelly and other people mostly associated with Wired magazine, you can bet real money - but the minimum stake is $1,000 and all winnings have to go to charity.
But the present cultural climate is more suitable for Flipem. For example Banzai, a betting show that spoofs a crazed Japanese game show, is a surprise hit on British TV at the moment.
Discuss
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Afghan heroin trade is booming
The new Afghan government is failing to reduce heroin production, according to a BBC news team that has been inside the country. In many areas only a few token fields have been uprooted. Indeed, poppy production was controlled much more effectively under the Taliban.
There were warnings that this was likely to happen before the Taliban was ousted. The prospect now is that Europe will be flooded with cheap heroin.
Discuss
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Spam busting
Will unsolicited email ever be got under control? At the moment I try to keep it down to manageable proportions by giving out different versions of my home email address (I can do this because I have my own domain). Then if one address falls into evil spammer hands I'll know where the spammers got it, and will also be more easily able to filter the spam out.
Spam Motel automates process. It creates any number of disposable email addresses on demand, and lets you make notes on who you are giving them out to.
When email subsequently starts arriving for these addresses Spam Motel forwards the messages on to you, along with the your notes. Then, if any of the addresses fall into the hands of spammers you can simply delete them - you own original email address remains unaffected.
This beats my existing approach, which lets me identify incoming spam easily but doesn't cut it off at source.
What I'm not sure about is how Spam Motel is funded. It's free, but is there a catch?
Discuss
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Wednesday, July 24, 2002
Asteroids and ice cream
Good coverage of the threat posed by asteroid 2002 NT7 at the BBC, including a forum to reassure worried readers.
There's reassurance of another kind at US ABC News, where Asteroid may hit Earth has to compete with Can an ice cream diet be good for you? Apparently 'dieters can now live the dream'. So we can at least all go on a guilt-free comfort-eating binge.
Real reassurance depends on governments committing the resources to fund an adequate space watch programme, but at the moment they are not. NASA-JPL's Near Earth Object site has an clear explanation of the nature, scale and likelyhood of the threat.
Discuss
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Business leaders with feet of clay
Wonderfully bad-tempered and somewhat unfair attack on Sun's boss Scott McNealy by Michael Thomas at Salon. But his wider complaint is spot on.
What's really annoying Thomas is the dominant ethos of American business over the last decade, which he describes as 'near worship and lavish compensation for people who "make things happen" coupled with near contempt and minimal rewards for people who "make things work".'
He points out that what happened is exactly what could have been expected: 'a tidal wave of scandal ...meltdowns and bankruptcies'. He also predicts that there's another scandal coming - because many of the products and services supplied by the firms with the happening bosses never worked properly.
Discuss
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Divided Israel
Two articles in the always-interesting Israeli daily newspaper Ha`aretz show how current hard-line policies are straining consensus among Israel's supporters.
The first concerns the assassination of Salah Shehadeh, accompanied by the deaths of at least 15 civilians. Amos Harel asks how the decision to go ahead with this questionable operation came about.
His conclusion is that in the light of horrifying terror attacks on Israeli citizens 'a kind of apathetic indifference to the possibility of Palestinian casualties has set in'. If this attitude continues Israelis could end up on war crimes charges in The Hague, he warns.
The second piece is by Alec Dubro, a 55 year-old American of Jewish descent who lives outside Israel. Despite supporting the state materially and emotionally over the years, he's now asking for the removal of the settlements from the West Bank, Gaza and Golan.
But inside Israel what many want is the exact opposite - the removal of the Arabs. According to a recent opinion study, 46 percent of the adult Jewish population of Israel support 'transfer' of Palestinians from the occupied territories. The report (pdf) by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, reveals a population strongly divided on many issues, but moving increasingly to the right.
Discuss
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Friday, July 19, 2002
Way clear for unpiloted aircraft in UK
Increasing military use of large unpiloted aircraft raises the question of when civilians will get their hands on the technology. Farmers, security firms and academic institutions are all potential uses provided so-called UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) are cheap enough and legal.
Until recently the legal problem has been the most serious. But the Civil Aviation Authority has released an updated guidance document that sets out a clear framework for their use in UK airspace. As well as summarising the present legal requirements, the document provides pointers to the sorts of capabilities UAVs are likely to require in the future to operate safely alongside other air traffic.
In the US September 11th hasn't helped the case for unpiloted aircraft. But pressure is growing on the Federal Aviation Authority to relax the rules or at least come up with a clear roadmap.
Discuss
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Steam plane flying on a beam of light
Scientists at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have taken up the idea of powering aircraft by laser beams from the ground (see report on earlier experiments at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and at the University of Toronto in this blog).
A new wrinkle added by the Tokyo researchers is to use water as the reaction mass rather than air. This would allow such craft to operate at altitudes where the air is thin or non-existent.
But don't expect to ride in such a plane any time soon. The Tokyo plane has a wingspan of about two inches, weights less than a hundredth of an ounce and has achieved a top speed of only three miles per hour.
There's a movie of the thing in action at the Nature site.
New York Times story (requires registration but free).
Discuss
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Thursday, July 11, 2002
Nevada to vote on legal use of cannabis
Voters in Nevada will decide in November whether to let adults legally possess small amounts of marijuana (the preferred US term for cannabis). A petition to put the measure on the ballot has narrowly succeeded with about 75,000 valid signatures.
The Omaha World Herald quotes one of the organisers as saying the result proves that most Nevadans think it's a waste of tax dollars to arrest people for small amounts of the drug. Most of the comments on the newspaper's site agree.
The proposed changes go further than those currently taking place in the UK, where penalties for possession of small amounts of cannabis are being reduced but not eliminated.
Under the Nevadan proposals, the drug would be legal if bought through state-licensed shops, and provided cheap to those needing it to treat medical conditions.
Discuss
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Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Getting the facts right on phones
'Half the people in the world have never made a phone call' is undoubtedly a startling expression. Not surprisingly it has proved very popular with politicians and corporate leaders. But is it true?
Clay Shirky argues convincingly that it's a myth - and what's more one that conceals a much more interesting truth. The real story is of very rapid growth in telephone use - especially in poorer countries.
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Expert spots forgotten Michelangelo
Good report on how a visiting museum director from Scotland made the find while on holiday in New York.
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Friday, July 05, 2002
Arab world is stagnating
Over half the young Arabs polled for a UN report want to emigrate.
Five percent of the world's population - 280 million people, live in countries with Arab-speaking majorities. The Arab Human Development Report looks into their prospects.
Though life expectancy has gone up in recent years and the numbers attending school increased substantially, the overall picture is of stagnation and cultural isolation.
Currently the Arab world as a whole translates only about 330 books a year. Each year Spain translates as many books as the Arab world has managed in the last thousand.
Only 1.2 percent of people in the region have access to a computer, and only half of that number use the Internet.
The economy lacks dynamism. The region is still overwhelmingly dependent on oil, which makes up 70 percent of exports. Spending on research and development is less than one-seventh the world average.
In spite of the progress in education at school level, 65 million adults are still illiterate. Almost two-thirds of them are women.
On the plus side HIV/AIDS rates are low, but tobacco and road accidents are still major killers.
Discuss
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Thursday, June 13, 2002
History of the business giants
Good review of Alfred Chandler's book 'Inventing the Electronic Century: the epic story of the consumer electronics and computer industries'. It's on the Strategy & Business site run by Booz Allen Hamilton, which is free but requires registration.
Chandler is an 83-year old Professor at Harvard Business School, who has spent his entire career writing about the history of firms, mostly the large corporations that have come to dominate the modern world.
From the article:
'Success, Professor Chandler argues, comes to companies that cultivate an “integrated learning base,” as he calls it: the capabilities needed to lead in a particular business niche.
'An integrated learning base is not just core competence. Sony, for example, maintained the center of a network of Japanese production plants, testing laboratories, components developers, and suppliers “all within a three-hour train ride,” close enough to continually experiment and learn from each other.
'A company that masters its integrated learning base has an almost natural ability to monopolize its niche. To Professor Chandler, that explains why companies like IBM, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, and DuPont stay dominant for decades. “That base, for those who get there first, becomes the barrier to entry for competitors,” he says.'
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Wednesday, May 22, 2002
At last, a decent UK government web site
It's the Office of National Statistics. Sounds dull, but it's fast and well-organised. It makes an awful lot of information available in an accessible way.
Discuss
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Friday, March 01, 2002
Vast new Turner collection goes online
Thousands more images by the artist J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) are now available online thanks to a BT-sponsored initiative by the Tate Gallery in London. This should please Turner-lovers such as myself - I currently use Northam Castle as background wallpaper on my PC. There's now a new version on the Tate site.
Turner is an unusual artist because he combines an emotional and almost mystical approach with a more conventional (and respectable) academic formalism. Technically some people regard him as an early forerunner of the Impressionists, but he was painting a good half-century before them and in a different cultural climate.
The new collection includes all the pages from some 300 sketchbooks found in his studio at the time of his death, as well numerous other watercolours and oil paintings. All told the Tate has around 30,000 Turner images - far too many to exhibit in physical gallery space, which is why it has turned to the web.
As the Tate points out, one reason that we can now regard Turner as a proto-Impressionist is because we have access to versions of his work that his contemporaries would never have seen. This perception is likely to be strengthened by the new material.
All these images are rather daunting, so here are some quick Turner takes from elsewhere on the web.
Three famous images.
14 more.
Yet more with Turner article.
Discuss
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Tuesday, February 26, 2002
Doomsday for minister from hell
The events of September 11th continue to resound around the world, interacting with local political systems and producing effects that are often incomprehensible to outsiders. One example is the rapidly disappearing political career of the UK's transport minister Stephen Byers.
Byers' enemies have numerous reasons for attacking him, not least his inability to improve Britain's clogged and dangerous road and rail systems.
But his latest battle concerns not some new rail disaster but his relationship with his own staff. They are quarrelling with such ferocity that it is beginning to have constitutional implications.
The problem started on September 11th, when one of his close aides, Jo Moore, suggested in an email - even as the Twin Towers burned, that it was 'a very good day to get out anything we want to bury'.
When this profoundly cynical message became public (leaked by a Moore colleague) it shocked the nation. But when Byers refused to sack the culprit - a former Labour party official he had himself appointed, it highlighted something else - a change in the character of UK officialdom. Many now see it as becoming over-politicised.
While they are both democracies, the UK and the US have opposite ideas about how the bureaucratic side of government should operate. The UK has a long tradition of keeping the bureaucracy - called the civil service, strictly separate from party politics.
The idea is that civil servants will work loyally and efficiently for whomever the people elect, but that civil service appointments will be decided on professional merit, not by political allegiance. In the UK system politicians have only limited rights to hire and fire people on the public payroll.
But this peculiarly British division of powers has been under pressure since the time of Margaret Thatcher. Tony Blair's government has appointed almost a hundred special advisors, paid from public funds, to what would have once been considered neutral civil service positions. In the Twin Towers case, both the writer of the offending email, and the person who later leaked the email to the press, were such political appointees.
The latest twist is that career civil servants of the traditionally neutral type have now been drawn into the conflict. This is beginning to worry people concerned with the UK constitution - a professional, non-political civil service is often cited as a key reason for the country's enviable record of stability.
The general feeling here is that the unloved Byers won't survive for much longer.
Hence today's Guardian article headed 'Doomsday for minister from hell'. If this were about any other British political figure it would almost certainly result in instant legal action.
Discuss
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Thursday, February 21, 2002
Earth at night
This is one of a great collection of pictures from NASA, with the lights at night clearly showing where humanity is clustered most densely.
For other good pictures try putting 'earth' into the Astronomy Picture of the Day search engine. If slow try the UK mirror.
For less beautiful but more accurate pictures of the lights of Earth at night try the Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute at the University of Padua in Italy.
This site is run by astronomers seeking to limit the damage caused by outdoor lighting to astronomers - and wildlife. In the UK for example you have to go to remote parts of the highlands of Scotland to get a clear view of the stars.
Discuss
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Friday, February 01, 2002
How's your grammar?
Will it pass the test? It's hard to resist a quiz - particularly if it's pitched at the right level. It needs to be challenging, but easy enough so that you still pass with flying colours.
The test above is posed on the BBC Five Live radio show's site. It's aimed at native UK English speakers, and focuses on things that still often cause them confusion.
Although I got 10 out of 10 at this test, my problem is placing punctuation marks correctly in relation to quotes (and brackets). I still have to stop and think about it, and even then it often looks wrong even if it isn't.
I found this resource at the Department of Advertising at the University of Texas helpful.
Partly, though, it's a matter of opinion. I'm not sure the Texans are right about the semicolon, for example.
There are differences between UK and US punctuation - this is an excellent UK reference.
Discuss
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Friday, January 25, 2002
Is the amount of journalism online actually falling?
I'm not talking about weblogs and other forms of vanity publishing, but professional journalism of the sort found in printed newspapers and magazines.
Cutbacks and closures at Internet pure plays have presumably reduced their journalistic output. That leaves the traditional print publishers as the main potential source of professional journalism. But do they put all their articles online?
I haven't been able to find any numbers that directly address this question. But I suspect that the proportion of original content from print publications that is put online is actually falling.
Publishers are expert at making money out of printed information, but haven't really figured out how to make money online yet.
One thing they do know though is that a small proportion of their web pages generate most of their hits. So putting the full text of every issue online doesn't make much sense in traffic and therefore ad terms. It's only worth doing if you can charge for it directly.
The more prestigious newspaper sites do still have past-issue archives, but many now attempt to charge for access to it. But for most of the press, particularly the tabloid, local and specialist trade press, only parts of the publication go online.
This is certainly the case in the UK, the country I am most familiar with. Long feature articles are most likely to get the chop. Some sites are now little more than cheap syndicated news, with only a few comment or entertainment columns taken from the paper product to give them a bit of personality.
I find this particularly frustrating as a freelance journalist, as my more substantial pieces of work are the least likely to get a showcase.
Jupiter MMXI has just released a report suggesting that here in Europe publishers are more likely to make money out of mobile phone services and broadband content such as music than charging for online versions of their printed content.
"Newspapers and magazines struggling to generate direct consumer revenues from their Web sites have more opportunity to charge for content on mobile phones. They should use their Web presence as a way to promote mobile content with which they will be able to generate more revenues", the Internet research company suggests.
Discuss
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Monday, January 21, 2002
How to lose friends and influence people against you
The Bush administration is doing an amazing job of squandering support even from its closest allies. Here's the front page of today's Daily Mirror - a UK tabloid with a circulation of over two million that normally supports the government.
The accompanying editorial says "Bush is close to achieving the impossible - losing the sympathy of the civilised world for what happened in New York and Washington on September 11 ... The treatment of the prisoners in Cuba is no more than a sick attempt to appeal to the worst red-neck prejudices."
The current issue of Private Eye, the UK's top satirical title, has a picture of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay on the cover. One guard is saying to the other: "What about their rights?" The reply: "It's OK. They're chained to their lefts."
Treating religiously motivated terrorists in a worse way than normal prisoners of war or ordinary criminals can backfire badly. Here's the grave of the executed leaders of the Easter Rising in Dublin. The harsh British policy helped transform a tiny movement of extremists in 1916 into a victorious movement only a few years later.
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Saturday, January 19, 2002
Israeli journalist calls for castration of Arabs
Meanwhile the spirit of ethnic cleansing is apparently alive and well among Russian immigrants to Israel. The broadly liberal daily newspaper Ha'aretz reports with some horror on an article published in Novosti, a Russian-language paper distributed in the country.
The article, called "How To Force Them To Leave", by Marian Belenki, says that the threat of castration might encourage Arabs to leave Israel. It also advocates Chinese-style measures against Arab families that have more than one child.
Though Novosti has now disowned the article, Ha'aretz comments that it seems to have aroused remarkably little controversy among the Russian-language paper's readers.
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Saudis want American troops out, allegedly
Saudi Arabia's rulers are uncomfortable with the US military presence in their country and may ask the Americans to leave, according to a report in the Washington Post (there's an updated version at International Herald Tribune.)
If true this would have the unlikely effect of simultaneously pleasing both the Israelis and Bin Laden's followers.
But it may not be true. MSNBC has Colin Powell dismissing the story. Because flying in troops and equipment from elsewhere when an emergency arises isn't as effective as having the facilities already in place, both the American and Saudi military are likely to want the bases to stay.
Nonetheless, plenty of people have an interest in creating trouble in the American-Saudi relationship. There has been a developing campaign in the US against the Saudi alliance in both the media and Congress.
The Wall Street Journal ran a comment piece by Ralph Peters on January 4th called The Saudi Threat. (This is currently on the free part of the WSJ site but may soon disappear into the paid for archive). Here's a quote:
"By funding religious extremists from Michigan to Mindanao, the Saudis have done their best to destroy democracies, turn back the clock on human rights and deny religious freedom to Islamic and other populations -- while the United States guarantees Saudi security. It is the most preposterous and wrongheaded policy in American history since the defense of slavery ...
"We must work against the Saudis' campaign of religious hatred and subversion around the world ... Finally, we must be prepared to seize the Saudi oil fields and administer them for the greater good ... Far from being indispensable to our security, the Saudis are a greater menace to it than any other state, including China."
A strong case against this view is made on Chuck Spinney's Defense and the National Interest site. But the Saudi connection is coming under mounting political attack in the US.
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Friday, January 18, 2002
Search engines reduce need for domains
Why aren't people registering as many Internet domain names as they used to? Dan Gillmor argues that it's not just down to the tech slump. It's also because search engines have become so good that users prefer to find sites that way.
I think there's a lot to this argument. When I'm looking for a site - even a company site, I generally go straight to Google rather than trying to guess the correct domain name. With all the new domains - dot biz and dot info, not to mention all the country versions, it's getting harder and harder to know what a site is called.
Another advantage of using a good search engine is that you get pointed to a variety of different sites about the company.
For example, if I enter 'BT Openworld' into Google, I get back links not just to the official British Telecom Openworld site, but also to BT Openwoe, a highly-critical user forum, and to press reports on various problems it is having with its customers.
In other words, search engines give you a more complete picture of a company's online presence.
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Friday, January 11, 2002
Legal problems ahead for the Internet
Various prominent American lawyers give their views to the New York Times on how the law is going to affect Internet and IT developments this year. (NYT site is free but requires registration.) Most of them see plenty of legal disputes and dubious legislation ahead.
And here's an extract from Lawrence Lessig's book The Future of Ideas. Lessig, a law professor at Stanford, argues that we risk killing off many of the benefits of the Internet by enforcing over-protective property laws. In case this seems unlikely, he starts by showing how the application of 'silly and extreme' copyright law is already damaging creative filmmakers.
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More stories from past months
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
