Whiteout Conditions

Well it looks like Neal Stephenson was right when he wrote Snow Crash. The merging has indeed begun, but it may end up having the Google name. Next up will be the Library of Congress, the CIA, NSA, etc. It actually makes sense being as they are all in the information gathering and data mining business. I wonder how long it will be before full fledged gargoyles start walking among us.

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Time of Transition

I just finished the third book in the Hinges of History Series, Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus by Thomas Cahill. It’s late so I don’t think I’ll ramble too much.

Turns out I was wrong about the length.

I talked a little about the last book The Gifts of the Jews in my previous review. This book actually reminded me more of the first in the series, How the Irish Saved Civilization. It has Cahill’s characteristic love for his subject, along with some of the interesting, if tenuously supported, leaps that he sometimes makes. This book has more information from source than the previous in the series, and that is what harkens back to the first book. However, TGotJ provides a good backdrop for the events of this book.

Cahill goes through the time just before Jesus arrival until a few centuries after the crucifixion. The primary amount of time is spent talking about the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Acts and Paul’s letters. Cahill tries to place the events in the books in a historical context of world and local events at the time. He points to probable times of when the books were transcribed from the original oral tradition and the effect that may have had. He compares the differences between the books and how that relates to the age of the original writings and the person from whom the writings descend. He talks of Peter’s odd Greek in Mark as being the second language of a Jewish fisherman, Matthew the educated Tax collector’s more precise but still unusual Greek, Luke the gentile’s beautifully worded gospel that sees things from a different angle than his Jewish brethren, John’s gospel that stands apart from the other three in various ways, and the amazing letters of Paul to the fledgling churches.

Cahill writes the book as his version of a Christian Historian. Either of those by themselves is a hard line to walk without pissing someone off. Put both of them together and you will most definitely do so. Some people will see him deviate too far from the historian perspective, and some will say the same of the religious side. I think he does a remarkable job of writing a book that most people can read and come away inspired to learn more. I recommend it as a good starting point to further study, or as an additional piece in ongoing study.

I don’t see myself as one who tries to conform to orthodoxy. I’ve known “orthodox Christians” who are frankly some of the meanest, most self centered, and judgmental people I have ever met. They put on airs of following orthodoxy merely so they can point out other flaws. Yes I know I just passed judgment myself. I’m working on that, and I try not to let my judgmentalness rule me. I like the more Jewish idea that the scriptures are to be studied and discussed, of which I should do more. I also don’t feel the books should be viewed in a vacuum. They were influenced and edited by people and politics. Studying the conditions of that can lead to even greater trust faith and understanding.

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Nuttin’. Just nuttin’

Really, there hasn’t been anything going on recently, and I’m kinda tired of it. I haven’t even finished another book yet, but I should be close. I’m just going to type to hear myself hitting the keys. Who knows how long they will ramble around the keyboard?

I’ve been watching with some interest as the Fed requests information from Google about search history. Ars has a good update about it. The gov. has requested information about search history from several online search entities in order to use that information to try to rally support for a child protection law that as struck down as constitutional. Yahoo and Microsoft have already complied, but Google has so far refused too. First of all this move is probably to protect Google’s secret search technology and information gathering power. Frankly I bet they don’t want everyone to know exactly how much information they are capable of gathering. It’s also acting as a good distraction from the concerns about their censored site in China. Frankly, I agree that if the government got the information it could be manipulated very easily to support almost anything. It is a huge amount of information they are requesting. I don’t know what in the world they expect to glean form it, but the signal to noise ratio is probably atrocious. Like the automated eavesdropping on thousands of phone calls by the NSA, there should be way too many false positives to be anything other than a waste of resources. It looks like more of this is going to be decided in the courts.

With all the goings on about DRM and root kits, Ars put an amusing little piece about David Birch jumping up and giving the tech industry what for. It does the standard stick of pointing out that DRM is about getting consumers to pay multiple times for content: theater, DVD, UMD, sound track CD, sound track MP3, HD DVD/BlueRay, and whatever else they will think up in a few months. It also points out that many of the large tech and telecom companies could collectively buy and sell most of the content companies. Interestingly, it recommends strong-arming them into supporting more free use of format switching and portability of material. The idea is interesting but futile. Right now I’m waiting for the huge backlash as many of the people who bought HDTVs and video cards to find out that they can’t watch HD content unless they get a new TV. Well except that pirates will have HD stuff that will work. Oo that’s going to be a mess. And it looks like some of the initial moves are going on.

Sony’s PS3 is supposed to be out some time this year, but Merrill Lynch has a report out that is casting some doubt on that. Ars has their usual excellent coverage of it. There has been a lot of talk about Microsoft skipping the HD DVD drive on the XBox 360, and from the looks of Sony’s numbers it is obvious why it was done. It seems that the Blueray requirement is throwing a huge wrench into making the PS3 cost competitive with the XBox 360. Then on top of that you have the delays in the finalization of the stooped DRM spec. I’m really curious about the console wars this year. Nintendo has the Revolution coming out, and it’s so different from the other two in technology and price that no one knows what it’s going to do. All I know is that is that if ML is right about the numbers, and “All signs point to yes”, then Sony stands to loose a huge amount of money if they try to get close to the XBox 360 price.

I was interested to see an article up on the NYTimes today about an explosion in legislation to limit the use of eminent domain in local government. Some months ago a friend and Ars both mentioned about the Kelo decision relating to eminent domain being used to acquire property for private development purposes. It seems that while the SCOTUS decision was based purely on law, a path was set marked out to allow state governments to prevent this from happening again. I like the fact that action is being taken by the states. I just hope they don’t spike the ball too hard in a knee jerk response, but that’s why we have 50 state governments. There are plenty of models to observe if yours doesn’t work that well.

As a closing I want to give a shout out to some “Good Samaritans” doing the right thing. To have people willing to travel hundreds of mile to place themselves between protesters and the families of fallen soldiers shows the outstanding character of people in this country. And it makes me pray for the misguided people out there protesting.

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And Have a Pleasant Murrow

So yesterday I was kind of bored and didn’t feel like watching TV or starting a new book yet. I looked around and saw that Good Night, and Good Luck was showing at the theater, so I got up and went. For those of you that don’t know, the movie is about Edward R. Murrow, the man credited with helping to create broadcast journalism, and it takes place during the McCarthy hearings. During this time Murrow did several news reports on McCarthy that helped lead to the Senator’s censure.

Interestingly the movie is directed by George Clooney, who also stars in it. The movie is basically about the responsibilities of journalists, broadcast and otherwise. Most of the story could ring as true in today’s political climate is it did then. Basically I liked it and would recommend it to any of my friends. I say go watch it at a matinee or rent it. Unique theatrical experiences like this need to be supported. Oh and I was reading some of the reviews and John Wirt and I had a similar experience. When the movie ended several members of the audience applauded. And I think I was one of two people there who didn’t have grey hair.

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Pounding out the Anvil

Well I finished Stone and Anvil by Peter David Friday. That’s probably the fastest I’ve read a book in quite a while. Then I decided to try to pull the other books in the series together. It wasn’t until after I started looking that I realized how prolific a writer he is. If you’re interested, I’ll ramble on about it.

In my previous post I mentioned a few of the books I had read by PD. I read the two Star Trek books years ago, so I thought I might mention them. Both books are similar in that they combine ST:TNG and ST:TOS plots and characters. PD uses a lot of previously created characters and items in his ST books, but he usually expands on them or uses them in new interesting ways. I read Imzadi about the time it first came out. It uses ST:TNG characters from the future of the ST:TNG timeline, the Guardian of Forever from The City on the Edge of Forever episode in ST:TOS, and ST:TNG characters from the TV timeline of ST:TNG. I don’t remember much about the quality of the writing, but the use of characters and tGoF was a nice tie in to ST:TOS. I read Q-Squared some years back. It uses Q and characters from ST:TNG and the character Trelane from ST:TOS The Squire of Gothos. Trelane was in one episode of TOS and was an incredibly powerful being, but ended up being a child. In this book Trelane turns out to be a childlike member of the Q, and he decides to destroy the universe. Q-Squared is actually really disorienting, because it jumps back and forth in time and space and between alternate timelines without really telling you where you are right now. It’s told from the point of view of Q, and it takes a while to wrap you brain around it. Anyway I thought that was useful as a background for PD’s ST books.

Stone and Anvil is the 14^th book in the Star Trek New Frontier series. Peter David created the series using some of the lesser characters from ST:TNG and some new creations of his own, and as far as I know he has written or edited all of the books in the series. It takes place during the ST:TNG timeframe in a previously unexplored sector of the galaxy previously controlled by the recently collapsed Thallonian Empire. This means that the books are of a consistent style, universe, and aren’t really affected by other series much.

Basically this is about what I expected in the book. It has PD’s sense of humor, irony, and good character development. The story is engaging and has a very natural conversation style. It’s basically like reading a good episode of a ST series. Luckily you don’t have to have read the previous books in the series to enjoy this one. However, I would recommend having watched a good portion of ST:TNG just to familiarize yourself with the time period of the series, technology, and TNG characters. So if you are a ST fan and like reading this is a good fast book. I think it would make an excellent car or plane book.

Now on to my next conquest.

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Groaner of the Day

So I started reading a new book, Stone and Anvil by Peter David. (Friggin B&N won’t do a search for his name in quotes.) I like much of PD’s work that I have read; Knight Life, One Knight Only, Q-Squared, and Imzadi. I find them fairly well written for the genre and usually quite entertaining. I also like some of the dry inside jokes he plays with the characters, and that leads me to this short post. I was starting S&A when one such moment presented itself. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, played by Patrick Stewart in ST:TNG, was entertaining a person he thought had potential as a member of Star Fleet. Picard was taking him up in a shuttle to see the ship Stargazer, and they were talking about what it took to become a Captain in Starfleet. Picard said there was much he had to learn, and the potential candidate said:

“Learn how? Where?”

“Well there is an academy. A school, back on the planet where I was born. The best, the brightest, the most gifted young people attend it to learn and grow and, ultimately, see if they have what it takes to be a Starfleet officer.”

“Are you in charge of it?”

“No, no.” Picard smiled. “I couldn’t exactly see myself running a school for gifted youngsters. …”

Buh dum dum. I laughed in spite of myself. It’s nice to see PD putting his X-men experience to good use.

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Leveraging Past Contributions

I just finished reading The Gifts of the Jews: … by Thomas Cahill, the second in the Hinges of History series. I started reading the series with How the Irish Saved Civilization some months ago. This book read really fast, so I probably won’t ramble on about it for too long.

This book is about the early history of the Hebrews, that later became the Jews. It starts with the earliest history of Avram, also known as Abraham. It follows the story of the Hebrews up through Torah, Neviim, and Ketuvim. It talks about the changes the people undergo and what those changes have meant for most of modern society. If that isn’t ambiguous enough, then I didn’t do that right. After this point there will probably be some spoilers, but not too many.

I have to say that I really like the first book, HtISC, and this one had a lot to live up to. Now I’m going to say that it didn’t quite live up to those expectations. I’m not exactly sure why that is. Cahill speaks wonderfully in both books. In HtISC Cahill talks of the Irish and their past as one in love with the people, but also he communicates with an obvious confidence supported by facts. It makes one feel that you have to agree with him, but he presented the information so well that you felt he was justified.

In TGotJ, Cahill’s writing is a little more strained trying to invoke that same feeling, and he seems desperate to make the strength if his point sometimes. He seems to take something that I agree is very important and tries to make it most important. The love he showed in HtISC has gotten a little more towards the fanaticism side in this one. I think one of the reasons if the age and limited original material for what he is dealing with in this book. I think another part may be that I am more familiar with some of the concepts he covers in this book.

Basically he covers the transition from a polytheistic, urban people from Sumer into the Hebrews and then Jewish people. It doesn’t sound like much, but it actually covers many changes. You have the switch from a polytheistic society with gods for every household to a society with one God. You have a switch from idols that could be manipulated with tribute and ritual to provide what you want to the invisible God is not manipulated by man. You have the change from mythological tales of Sumer to the more stories of Abraham, Moses, and David that occur in a more familiar historical form. By that I mean they contain things like names of those not central to the story, and chronological references like the event occurring in the reign of a specific king. Most mythological stories don’t reference anything about other events at the time of the story, and most fail to name anyone but the central figures. There is also the change to an alphabet based writing system that facilitated more people learning the language more quickly.

One of the biggest changes was from the cyclical idea of time to a linear frame of mind. This is the most difficult concept for most modern people to get due to its current ubiquitous nature. Many early civilizations seem to have viewed “time” as a series of cycles. The saw the cycle of the sun, moon, and stars through the sky, the waxing and waning of the moon, fertility cycles, the seasons, the year, birth and death. It was all cycles on cycles. Everything had an eternally repeating feel to it. Little seemed to change and progress was almost an unknown concept. What progress had been made was often forgotten as progress in a few generations and was relegated to something that had always been. Some of these were attributed to gods in new mythological stories such as Prometheus and fire and Poseidon and horses.

Anyway this is a very interesting book. It is short and a fast read. While not as good as HtISC it is definitely worth a read to those interested in this subject. However, do not read it as a sole authority. I suggest reading several other books of similar material as well. Just off the list of books below are A History of Knowledge, Lies My Teacher Told Me, and Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. So if you like this stuff give it a knock and see what you think.

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Drink your way to lower gas prices.

I find it interesting that there was a CNN article about ethanol production just days before the State of the Union in which the President touted ethanol and other alternative energy sources. I’m impressed at the about face on that one, but I’ll leave political commentary for others better suited. I’ll ramble about other things.

I’m intrigued by the creation of ethanol from scrap material. We produce a lot of scrap biological material during food and natural materials processing. Much of it has to be specially disposed of in furnaces. I’m just wondering about the equipment investment required to do this. It takes a while for bacteria to create ethanol, but genetic engineering could greatly improve this for specific substances.

Then you have the possibility for methane production with material that may not lend itself to ethanol. Methane is actually a bad greenhouse gas. It has been targeted because of the massive amounts produced by cows, but it is also the primary gas in natural gas. Here again genetic engineering could produce microbes that could produce the gas much more quickly, but methane usually needs to be produced in an oxygen free environment, increasing the cost. However, this energy could be used to reduce costs of running other systems.

Then there are the CO2 emissions reductions that are being called for. That involves auto efficiencies and power source, exploiting different power sources, reducing power consumption, and fixing carbon from the atmosphere. Automobile efficiencies will probably take care of themselves. New auto power sources are being worked on right now. Different power sources look like they are beginning to gather support finally. Interestingly wind turbines raise the local surface temperature of their location at night, and that actually increases the energy radiated into space. In other words they actually help fight global warming in two ways. New higher efficiency nuclear reactor plans have been on the drawing boards for years. I read something interesting about CO2 emissions from power plants. There is some talk of placing clear water filled columns around fossil fuel power plants. The CO2 emissions would be bubbled through the columns where genetically modified algae or other plants would fix it. The biological material could be periodically harvested and used. Of course this might not work as well in colder climates, but this is exactly the kind of modification that coal gasification is made to implement. I also think efficiency in equipment and home construction should be rewarded. I wonder if we could have tax breaks for the cost of insulating your house. Then there is the possibility of modifying plants to fix large quantities of carbon from the atmosphere. We’ll see what happens with some of this stuff.

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Hand in the Wiki jar

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, has been in the news of late. It has been criticized for the very innovativeness that makes its existence possible. Anyone can add or edit articles on Wiki, and some people have used that flexibility in a bad manner.

Just recently I was reading here and here about how some Congressional staff members have apparently been selectively editing biographies on members. This wouldn’t be bad if they were merely adding information to the pages, but some bios have had some of the less desirable facts removed. I guess it’s the difference between “Real Facts” and “Good Facts.”

Anyway I’ve just been thinking about the changes that the Internet has undergone in the past 4 years. How ubiquitous its presence has become, and how its use has changed. The previous elections saw some interesting increases in Internet traffic and use by politicians. I expect that this year will have even more news stories related to it, plus a lot of faked stuff to add noise to the signal. I also expect a few more scandals and poorly disguised attempts to hide bad things, and maybe one really bad event that will shake a lot of people up.

So what do you expect to see this election year on the net?

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