Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

It’s obvious that Al Gore gets it. Ending dependence upon oil is not only possible, it’s absolutely essential to the survival of the United States of America as it exists today. Sign the We Campaign and watch the video.

At about 19:30 of the video, Gore specifically mentions reducing “payroll taxes” and instead taxing unwanted carbon emissions. “Tax what you burn, not what you earn.”

He also highlights that as money is given to oil companies by governments in a vain attempt to reduce the cost of gasoline, the cost is reaching record levels and so too are company profits. Although with solar electricity, the more people who use that power source, the lower the price!

And as the demand for renewable energy grows, the costs will continue to fall. Let me give you one revealing example: the price of the specialized silicon used to make solar cells was recently as high as $300 per kilogram. But the newest contracts have prices as low as $50 a kilogram.

There is more inspiring vision in Gore’s speech than in any other I’ve heard. There are jobs to be had for any job lost in moving away from carbon fuel sources. And if we want to be leaders, we have to move first.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t think global warming is worth doing something about, because it’s undeniable that the world will be a better place if there are more green-economy jobs at home, and no dependence upon foreign oil. I know we can do this within 10 years. Entire fleets of vehicles were created and built more than 60 years ago in the second World War — there’s nothing stopping us from doing the same to our fleets now, except will power and vision. Al Gore has provided the vision to seize on to, let’s do it already!

Yesterday, I was telling you about the difficulties in getting what should be a slick MP3 player/FM radio to work. Just as you shouldn’t count your chickens before they are hatched, you should not count on the Zune to work until it’s patched. If you have dial-up and buy a brand new Zune, expect an 8 hour download before you can even use the FM radio in it.

I’m sure everyone has wanted a radio that needs to phone home to Microsoft before it will even tune. But the features of the Zune don’t stop failing to live up to their potential there! Yes, there’s more Digital Restrictions Management - DRM (AKA less)!

Features:
8GB of flash storage - This is a significant space upgrade over my 128MB flash drive, 1GB iPod Shuffle, and even 4GB minivault hard drive. There’s just one BIG catch though. The Zune’s storage space can’t be used like those other storage and/or MP3 playing devices, as a portable hard drive. When you plug it into a computer, you have to hack the registry to even SEE the device’s storage space. And if you try to copy files off of the Zune, it tells you that Access is Denied!

Your purchased files, and free ones you created yourself, wind up encrypted and inaccessible on all but your own computer(s) (maximum 3). Really, the limitations and caveats put on the features of the Zune’s hardware, are mind boggling and complicated. Here is a summary on Engadget (which is getting out of date possibly, although more restrictions may have been added/lifted since then).

Because the Zune can’t be detected as an external hard drive in any computer (including Macs and Linux) the designers couldn’t include a copy of the huge 41MB install file required to make the device work initially. By comparison, I plugged in my iPod Shuffle, downloaded iShuffle.exe (288KB) from Packard on the Web, copied a hundred MP3 files to a Music folder on the Shuffle, ran iShuffle.exe, and seconds later had a working MP3 player. I can also take those MP3 (and other) files off the Shuffle and put them on any, and as many, computers as I want (including Macs and Linux boxes).

WiFi communication - Geeks drool at the thought of wirelessly transmitting their music collection around. You could share with friends who have Zunes, talk to your library on your home computer or Xbox, or wherever. Time to stop drooling. The WiFi in the Zune is crippled, and doesn’t even work as a simple web browser like the iPod Touch. If you do manage to find someone else with a Zune to share music wirelessly, the transferred songs only play for 3 days, can’t be copied to the other person’s home computer, and can not be transferred again to that person. That goes for music you played and recorded yourself! (This is what Industry Minister Jim Prentice was talking about when the “market decides” how to handle Digital Restrictions Management.)

USB connection - The USB connection on the Zune charges the battery, flashes the firmware, and transfers the music/videos/photos. Like the iPods, they have a flimsy slim connector, instead of a mini-B USB like many cameras and cell phones use. The iPod Shuffle 2G also suffers from the same sort of specialized USB cable requirement.

Video and picture viewing - Something that my screenless Shuffle can’t live up to, is the ability to display videos and photos. I was able to transfer .wmv videos that I made using Windows Movie Maker, and play them on the Zune. The Zune software found the folder with my videos, and offered to sync them, which was handy. What isn’t so handy is that I can’t put my videos and photos onto another computer using the Zune as storage media, because of the digital lock lockout. I use my Shuffle as extra camera memory on vacations. The Zune is pretty much useless to me in that capacity because it wont’ work with my Linux laptop where I can transfer files around.

Bottom line - The Zune’s feature list is very promising, but it fails to deliver where it counts for me. I need control over my files, I don’t want control of them taken away from me. I want my portable media player to also work as a portable storage system. I want to use it on both of my computers (XP/Ubuntu Linux, and Sugar Linux XO) and my friends’ Macs. I want WiFi to not have bogus caveats put on its use, and it should include a simple web browser or email reader. The FM radio should work out of the box (like, duh!). The packaging should be minimalist and not a giant middle finger to the environment.

Why am I being so picky about something that was free for me? Because it isn’t free for someone else, and people need to know that they should expect more from (what are essentially disposable) electronics. This is 2008, and we may not have the flying car as promised, but we can have a music player that:
- transmits songs back and forth wirelessly (Bluetooth or WiFi)
- interfaces with a vehicle wirelessly (Bluetooth or FM) and/or with a universal USB connector
- plays and records radio and also records via microphone (video and photos for bonus points)
- plays most common and free video and audio formats
- includes a web browser if it has WiFi built in
- has a user-replaceable rechargeable battery (solar recharge for bonus points)
- has games, and firmware hackability
- works with existing software on most computers available today, without requiring a download

It’s devices like the Zune that convince people that learning about digital media is difficult and a specialized field reserved for 12 year olds and computer geeks. It’s nothing of the sort if standards are worked out, and digital locks are thrown out of the design plans. Then your wildest technological dreams become possible, because you can do what you expect, instead of being told “Access is Denied”.

I’m going to give my Zune a bit of time to grow on me, but at this point I’m fairly confident that I should offer it up as a booby prize or to someone who is looking to hack it and make firmware for it that actually fixes the numerous problems and complications.

Mirror mirror on the Moon
Made from carbon nano-tubes?
Sea of Tranquility you’ll see
Farther than the James Webb S.T.

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Hat tip to Snow White.

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My blog is up for review this week by Ask And Ye Shall Receive. As you can tell from any of their reviews and URL, they have a tendency to use potty talk and pull no punches, so expect a slaughter. It’s cool, the reviews are by invitation only, and you only live once right?

I can only hope they are saving the best for last this week… and that I’m not reviewed tomorrow in that case.

Almost anyone who has been on the Internet (in particular interactive or Web 2.0 websites) for a few years has encountered the phenomenon of electronic shunning. It happens when the website you frequently use and have become a member of, suddenly kicks you (or part of your content) off. The reason may be legitimate, or completely random and difficult to accept.

I’ve been shunned from eBay’s forums before, and had legitimate auctions removed which didn’t violate the rules of the site. Bloggers who allow comments have to make frequent decisions on how to handle abusive or unpleasant comments. It’s Wild West Web, except that each of the virtual communities we inhabit have potentially dozens of sheriffs with a multitude of backgrounds and biases, and none of them have to look the accused in the eye. It’s not hard to silence someone to the point where they just have to mosey on down the information highway to even be heard. Governments are nearly powerless to make it any easier to have free speech on the Net, and are only in the position to take the rest of our free speech online away.

In looking for the phrase “digital dystopia” I found this well written paper on DRM, Net Neutrality, and Copyright, and how it was clear to that author [and me] at least two years ago that each were critical issues in the continuation of the “free” WWW as we know it. It seems as the web grows, the number of providers of space shrinks. With each passing buy-out, we’re slowly losing Net Neutrality because the competing content hosts can’t stack up to the massive “free” resources afforded by Google, Yahoo, LiveJournal, and others.

For those new to the English language, “apathy” means that someone doesn’t care. “Ignorance” means that someone doesn’t know. Now I’m going to steal (and tweak) an old Wayne and Shuster joke and ask, “Why doesn’t our government do something about voter ignorance and apathy?
They don’t know about it, and don’t care.”

Here’s another word I re-learned in my first political science class:
legitimacy

A government lacks legitimacy if its state’s people feel there is no right for the government to wield power. An easy, and modern example of an illegitimate leader would be the rule of Robert Mugabe (who just held a sham election).

There is something to be said about not voting in enough numbers, to actually withhold the appearance of legitimacy from an otherwise democratic government. Alberta’s provincial election, and the last few federal minority government elections are arguably signs that Canadians no longer feel their government(s) is/are legitimately the ruler of our people. And if the government isn’t who is in charge of us, just who is running the show, and has the support of Canadians? Wayne Gretzky perhaps? Tim Horton’s?

John Gormley’s radio show often has callers (and the host) proclaiming that if someone doesn’t vote, they don’t have the right to complain about the government. In fact it’s something I’ve thought true, and is something I’ve heard in my family’s home as well. Now, I’m not so certain, because it certainly is tempting to say that the deafening silence at the ballot box, is as powerful as the votes for non-winning parties. Yet, that silence is meaningless in the current political discourse in the country, and so it lacks legitimacy.

Oh, the irony; how do the silent confirm their support for change? How can we sort their silent voices from the dead left on voter rolls, or the ignorant and apathetic? Do we have to tell them apart for that group’s message to matter to the elected leaders, and for them to matter to us, the voting electors?

Robert J. has put together his latest monthly list, and my blog has fallen into the top 10 again, woo hoo. Thank you readers/commenters, and Robert for taking the time to include my blog in your routine. It’s great having people talk and read about the things I’m thinking about, or answer questions I’m asking the world.

Everyone have a safe and fun Canada Day! I hope you get to see some fireworks, and clear or partly cloudy skies. It’s supposed to have hit +34 C in Regina on Monday, and a more perfect clear +28 C on Tuesday.

I had no idea there were so many uncontacted cultures yet in the world. Cool.

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Hat tip to Slashdot

It’s hard to keep a secret when that darn sun keeps lighting up your position in orbit! Is/was there really any point to making the existence of these satellites secret? I can understand wanting the launches to be secret, but good luck trying to fool China or another paranoid country into thinking that they aren’t up there.

Make a satellite that doesn’t reflect sunlight (or any light), and maybe it will stay a secret.