Thought of the Day

Global productivity would probably increase if Microsoft Excel didn't open with the default 3 spreadsheets. Think of all that man-hours saved if people didn't have to click to Sheet2 and Sheet3 just to check that there's nothing there....

Eldery Airbags

What an interesting and useful idea ... Wonder if it will come to Singapore where we keep harping about our aging population ...

Sir Ken Robinson Interviewed by Riz Khan

Much like the TED Video, a delightfully refreshing insight into the modern education system. Take 20 minutes off for this one.


Part 1:


Part 2:



[via: Presentation Zen]

Google Talk - No Time to Think

Vannevar Bush's 1945 article, "As We May Think," has been much celebrated as a central inspiration for the development of hypertext and the World Wide Web. Less attention, however, has been paid to Bush's motivation for imagining a new generation of information technologies; it was his hope that more powerful tools, by automating the routine aspects of information processing, would leave researchers and other professionals more time for creative thought. But now, more than sixty years later, it seems clear that the opposite has happened, that the use of the new technologies has contributed to an accelerated mode of working and living that leaves us less to think, not more. In this talk I will explore how this state of affairs has come about and what we can do about it.

ChupR - New Singapore Auction Website

Join ChupR now! =)

Thought of the Day

I think unconventional failures provide more opportunities in the future than ordinary success.

Thought of the Day

Isn't there really only 2 parts to education? Asking the right questions and knowing where to find the right answers.

How to create a great PowerPoint without breaking the (US) law.

Picked this up from the CITations blog:





[more: Alvin Trusty]

Thoughts of the Day

“四处望，皆唯图温饱之辈，胸无大志，如此何取天下?”

" I have not been wined and dined to my satisfaction" - Plato, The Republic, Book I

Why Things Cost $19.95

Pretty good read on the psychology behind pricing at Scientific American:

That is, if we see a $20 toaster, we might wonder whether it is worth $19 or $18 or $21; we are thinking in round numbers. But if the starting point is $19.95, the mental measuring stick would look different. We might still think it is wrongly priced, but in our minds we are thinking about nickels and dimes instead of dollars, so a fair comeback might be $19.75 or $19.50.

leading to :

they found that sellers who listed their homes more precisely—say $494,500 as opposed to $500,000—consistently got closer to their asking price.

[from : Scientific American]

Flat World Knowledge - Democratised Learning

Finally, a solution to the recurring issues of expensive college textbooks ....

We set out to solve problems – the silly cost and inflexible nature of textbooks, the lack of choice for students, and others. We did not set out to create problems. Making it hard to use our stuff would create a problem. Making you change your life in any significant way would be create a problem. So we didn’t.

EDUCATORS

+ Find & Review a Flat World Textbook
+ Adopt It
+ Make It Your Own (if you want)
+ Get The Supplements

LEARNERS
+ Find the Free Book For Your Class
+ Exercise Your Freedom To Choose
+ Participate in the Learning Network
+ Manage Your Stuff

Free knowledge for all!

[ more: Flat World Knowledge ]

Designing Data and Meaning to Become Information?

Briefly read the book Social Life of Information over the last week an one notion that stuck me was the idea of attaching meaning to data. Basically, data without meaning is not information and hence to a certain extent not useful.

What is meaning then? For most part it depends on context -- who is the subject, what conditions was the data produced in, and when that happened amongst many other things.

The contention here is that while we have gotten terribly good at the technical issues of indexing and retriving massive amounts of data at ever faster speeds, we have thus far not been as good at creating personal contexts in which the data can be interpreted at a personal level.

As a case in point, a very common example of data which can hold a wide variance of value depending on who reads it are scientific papers. Simply put, as most people thumb their way though journal articles and such, there is tremendous difficulty comprehension sometimes, much less expectation to relate to most of the concepts and ideas. In the hands of a professor of that field, little snippets of details about the paper add contextual meaning to it on top of the actual writing. Who the author(s) are, when the paper was written and other factors help a professor grapse the added level of meaning of it.

Back to the person in the street, we have to confess that the chances to pick up and read a scientific paper is extraordinarily low. But, what about common daily information that he/she has to interact with. Would added context help bring more meaning across? Would it help people better piece information together and get a better picture? Something which psychologically, humans are bad at is working with massive (or for that matter, even moderate) amounts of data and making some sense or detecting patterns in it.

Which begs the point, shouldn't we then be thinking of intelligent ways of structuring the way we work with data as well as the interfaces we rely on to help cover our cognitive blind-side?

Carmine Gallo on learning from Steve Jobs

Carmine Gallo on learning from Steve Jobs, highlighting the steps you can take to improve your own presentation:







[more : Carmine Gallo's Website]

[via: PresentationZen]

How to block RedNano.sg Ads in Firefox

I think there may be some potential in RedNano.sg to search for ST material if not for they way they prioritize their sponsored ads on top of all search results. This may get annoying in the future when they display too many advertisements and spoil the whole idea of search. Google understood this and that's why you don't get sponsored listings in their searches.

Anyway, just need to fire up good ol' AdBlock Plus extension in Firefox and add in this Element hiding rule -- "#div(sponsoredlink)" and you're back to ad-free goodness.....

Enjoy ~

Creative Technology just an iPod Accessory Maker?

As one of the brightest enterprises of yesterday, Creative used to be recognized as a leading soundcard manufacturer globally.

After losing focus and somewhat diversifying into the music player industry and now testing the water for the video conferencing market, one can't help but think that they are facing tough times when Bloomberg just prefers to label them simply as an iPod Accessory Maker in a news report about their loss forecast (double whammy):

March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Creative Technology Ltd., which makes accessories for Apple Inc.'s iPod, forecast the lowest sales in almost five years and said it will lose money on operations in the current third quarter.

Doesn't exactly help that they are going after people trying to help provide drivers for their sound cards for Vista either.

This should be a subtle(?) wake-up call for them...

[from : Bloomberg Asia]

Mocca and ST701 Web Traffic Hovering around Mediocrity

There's only so much annoying ads and throwing marketing dollars away can do for you...

The RedNano Difference

Just having some fun plunking searches into RedNano.


"st701" - descriptive first hit + full page of st701 sub-sections


"mocca" - first hit is official one but no descriptions?



Maye I'll try other searches for fun later ....

Meanwhile, think I'll be sticking to Google for more serious searching.

Thought of the Day

It's both amusing and awkward to see scripted jokes in presentations backfire from being too mechanically delivered.

At least it works to divert attention from the font-size 4 itsy stuff on the 60-slide presentation. And all that irrelevant transitions and clip art.

For [insert arbitrary deity here]'s sake, someone tell them about Presentation Zen already.

The Pirate's Dilemma

| View | Upload your own

Kinda has similiar thoughts before

[via: BoingBoing ]

The 20 Biggest Cross-Border SWF Deals Since 2005

An very illustrative infographic by New York Times :







[via : Tomorrow.sg]

NUS ranks Lowest in Customer Satisfaction Among 3 Local Universities

According to the statistics buried inside the executive summary PDF from SMU's Institute of Service Excellence (Ises):

Universities (70.9)

• NTU (70.8)
  
• NUS (70.6)
  
• SMU (72.2)
  

Almost neck-to-neck with NTU but SMU is way ahead? I'm kinda keen on seeing the full report so anyone keen on donating a thousand bucks for me to purchase it?

Interestingly, SMU is also sticking to the "we only have 3 universities in Singapore" viewpoint.

Probably not something which is going to appear in NUS Press Releases

[read more here: Today Online / SMU Press Release ]

11 innovation lessons from creators of World of Warcraft

Pretty interesting read on how the developers at WoW handle and make the best of various factors to boost innovation. The list reads :

1. Rely on critics
2. Use your own product
3. Make continual improvements
4. Go back to the drawing board
5. Design for different customers
6. The importance of frequent failures
7. Move quickly, in pieces
8. Statistics bolster experience
9. Demand excellence or you'll get mediocrity
10. Create a new type of product
11. Offer employees something extra

Looking at the list, one can easily tell that it is more or less applicable to any creative / innovation-driven business.

[ read it at : OC Register ]

Squanderville versus Thriftville - Warren Buffett warns against US Trade Deficit (5 years ago!)

This was an 2003 article from Fortune where Warren Buffett warned against the U.S. trade deficit and also suggested a remedy for the problem.

Excerpt:

In the late 1970s the trade situation reversed, producing deficits that initially ran about 1 percent of GDP. That was hardly serious, particularly because net investment income remained positive. Indeed, with the power of compound interest working for us, our net ownership balance hit its high in 1980 at $360 billion.

Since then, however, it's been all downhill, with the pace of decline rapidly accelerating in the past five years. Our annual trade deficit now exceeds 4 percent of GDP. Equally ominous, the rest of the world owns a staggering $2.5 trillion more of the U.S. than we own of other countries. Some of this $2.5 trillion is invested in claim checks -- U.S. bonds, both governmental and private -- and some in such assets as property and equity securities.

In effect, our country has been behaving like an extraordinarily rich family that possesses an immense farm. In order to consume 4 percent more than we produce -- that's the trade deficit -- we have, day by day, been both selling pieces of the farm and increasing the mortgage on what we still own.

Read the rest : TradeReform

J.F.C Fuller on Education and being Educated

Reading Gen. J.F.C Fuller's gem - Generalship, Its Diseases and their Cure and found this rather succinct point on the aim of education (staff generals in his case but conveys a telling point, nevertheless):

It does not really matter much what a certain general did at a certain date, but what is of importance is - why he did it in a certain set of circumstances. The object of education is not so much to discover 'what to think' as to learn 'how to think'. What is, or was, the governing reason of an action? What is, or was, the nature of an army's machinery; what can it, or could it, make? These are the types of questions an educated mind should ask itself.

I remember once attending some French maneuvers, when after an exercise, General Debeney asked a divisional commander to explain his plan to him. The officer began -- 'My machine guns, ...' whereupon he was cut short by Debeney who excitedly roared out : 'Damn your machine guns, I want your ideas."

Quote of the Day

Though it was referring to Clausewitz specifically, it seems so applicable to many in general:

" Clausewitz was a genius, and geniuses and clever men have a distressing habit of assuming that everyone understands what is perfectly clear to them"

- Lt-Col. G. F. R. Henderson

Newsweek Thinks The Internet Ain't All It's Hyped Up To Be

Finally, some opinion from the other side of the fence:

How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book.
......
What the Internet hucksters won't tell you is tht (sic - self-proven point?) the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data.

(full article: Newsweek - The Internet? Bah!)

Temasek Funds 9You.com, declares itself non-SWG

Seems like Temasek and others have just plunged US$100 million into Chinese online gaming and music site 9You. The site has recently claimed to have broken the 1M concurrent users milestone and is heading to IPO later this year.

This is interesting as it departs from Temasek's regular infrastructure-type investments and enters the virtual world. If it pans out, the ROI could be pretty high, but so's the inherent risk of such ventures.

(via : VentureBeat & alarm:clock)

===

In other news, Temasek says it "not a sovereign wealth fund" and hence "not affected by an agreement by Singapore, Abu Dhabi and the United States on principles to increase the transparency of sovereign wealth funds."

Spokesperson Mark Lee elaborated "Temasek has to sell assets to raise cash for new investments and doesn't require the government to give approvals."

The mind boogles.

(via: STOnline)

When I Stopped Studying and Started Learning

As a kid, there wasn't many other ways I could have gained information. It came firstly from the folks at home, then from the teachers in school. There wasn't much one could do but accept knowledge from these sources at face value and hope its worth whatever they are made out to me.

A bit later, there were libraries. Huge collections of information trapped with books enthrall which would the mind. The best part is you get to pick what you want to. And so, the choice widened but it was only as accessible as often as the folks brought me there. But still, it was a great leap.

Then the Internet happened. And boy, was it a whizz.

It was as if a surge of knowledge broke through. Never before was there so much information so readily available at the fingertips. It was a curious time as well as an empowering time. Data out there just to be collected as well as information being updated by the second.

===

So, that was the nutshell of perhaps, what most of my generation must have went through. We are a special bunch because we lived through the transition from analog to digital.

And the funny thing is, it is only now that I start to think: "Hey, I'm learning something here. compared to school, I get a choice, isn't this great?"

Then it struck me - What's happening now is the liberation of information from the few to the many. The sources of data have exponentially increased. The challenge is no longer getting the knowledge, but picking the right one to believe in.

And I learnt. Not to internalize bits of information nor to memorize dates, people and times, but to look at concepts and arguments, ideas and visions. We live in a age of ideas, not information, which merely is the vessel for ideas to propagate. The key now is working with information to get the ideas, not working the information alone.

PBS Frontline - The Secret of Credit Card

Another documentary about the dark side of these plastic cards:

PBS Frontline - The Secret of Credit Card

Much Ado about Stressed Out Team Members

Its nothing short of amazing to see how certain person can crack up or freeze like a deer in the headlights when they are put under stressful situations. Not so good though when that person is on your side of the playing field.

How then, does one deal with a stress-intolerant team member? I like to try the following:

1. Slow down on purpose - We all get influenced by people around us. If there's going to be a panicky bunch of people working on something, I'm more inclined on putting my money on a bunch of monkeys randomly punching typewriters as they probably are more productive. Try influencing the others with deliberation and deep thoughtful insight instead of wasteful worrying or haste.
   
   
2. Highlight the futility of cracking up - Extending from the earlier point, sometimes one just has to show that getting all cracked or frozen up does nothing positive for the end result.
   
   
3. Chart the Baby Steps - Seeing how the perception of someone under stress is going to be different (and probably more focused on the setbacks) than otherwise, sometimes it may just be better to go manual and lay out baby steps for them to take. At the very least, you can get them to be productive in some way (coffee-making?) or just keep them out from underfoot.
   
   
4. Avoid them the third time - Life's too short to be counseling stressed-out people all the time. Probably just work with them once more to see if they stick that way and make a mental note to avoid them next time. Nothing can be worse for team morale than a panicked guy running around the room with arms flailing.

So far so good ....

Thought of the Day

Maybe success is 5% inspiration, 90% perspiration and 5% knowing when it is opportune to be a jackass.

The Economic Naturalist

Just finished the book The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Robert H. Frank.






Essentially, this book is nice collection of little curiosities of life which seem to make no apparent sense but clear when we apply simple economic principles (mostly cost/benefit) to them. What's even more interesting is that all the examples and questions featured in the book come from term paper questions which the author had received after setting his students loose to go use economic reasoning to answer seemingly absurd daily occurences.

Some of the crackers include:

+ Why do drive through ATMS have braille keys on them?

+ Why do colour photos sell for less than black-and-white ones?

+ Why milk cartons are rectangular but soda cans are cylindrical?

and (for something closer to home)
+ Why do new luxury cars account for a higher proportion of automobiles sold in Singapore than in the United States?

This book should have been recommended reading for any introductory economics class as the examples are brilliant ones which first engage the curiosity and then answer it based on economic ideas. Definitely a must-read if you enjoyed Freakanomics also!

Thoughts of the Day

Where's the competitive advantage in being conventional?

==

Reading less just because you're studying is like holding your breath to allow more blood to go to your brains from your lungs.

The world mourns Gary Gygax. Roll on!

Always remembered for bringing us the rolling good times, the online community tips its hat in final farewell to Gary Gygax.

Penny Arcade

Giant in the Playground

xkcd

icanhascheezburger

Forbes' 2008 Billionaires List released.

Forbes' just released their 2008 List of the Richest Billionaires in the World. Here it is:

1. Warren Buffet, 77, US - US$22bn
2. Carlos Slim, Helu & family, 68, Mexico - US$60bn
3. William Gates III, 52, US - US$58bn
4. Lakshmi Mittal, 57, India - US$45bn
5. Mukesh Ambani, 50, India - US$43bn
6. Anil Ambani, 48, India - US$42bn
7. Ingvar Kamprad & family, 81, Sweden - US$31bn
8. KP Singh, 76, India - US$30bn
9. Oleg Deripaska, 40, Russia - $28bn
10. Karl Albrecht, 88, Germany - $27bn

Couple of main moves include Bill Gates' drop to 3rd as well as the emergence of a lot of Asian names (notably Indian)on the list. Guess the US dollar's exchange rate's weakness may be a key driver. Also interesting to note that these figures are mostly based on stock ownership with the addition of key private assets, so doubt the ultimate credibility of the figures. Possibly lots of more discrete

Also, it could be ironic if folks are actually less concerned about their own wealth than we are are for them.

In any case, it is a spectacular list.

[ More : Forbes ]

The Failure of Education ?

If there's a thing to be said of formal education in Singapore, it's that it doesn't really help one on the skills of thinking and talking. But it sure has done a helluva job for textbook and paper sales.

Thought of the Day

It used to be knowledge is power to the extent of how much you could stuff information in your head.

Now it seems that it is more useful to:

• Know how to and where to find information.
• Know how to synthesize/combine information.
• Learn when or how much information is enough.
• Understand what information is relevant.
• Learn to make decisions in light of (1) overwhelming information, or (2) too little information (There never seems to be just enough information anyway)
• Learn how to turnaround information in a prompt and useful fashion.

More Buffett Wisdom

Another great chuck of Warren Buffett wisdom from a meeting he had with some students on Feb 15 2008:

What if you could buy 10% of one of your classmates and their future earnings? You wouldn’t buy the ones with the highest IQ, the best grades, etc, but the most effective. You like people who are generous, go out of their way, straight shooters. Now imagine that you could short 10% of one of your classmates. This part is usually more fun as you start looking around the room. You wouldn’t choose the ones with the poorest grades. Look for people nobody wants to be around, that are obnoxious or like to take all the credit. If you have a 500 HP engine and only get 50 HP out of it, you’ll be beat by someone else that has a 300 HP engine but gets 250 HP output. The difference between potential and output comes from human qualities. You can make a list of the qualities you admire and those you despise. To turn the tables, think if this is the way I react to the qualities on the list, which is the way the world will react to me. You can learn to turn on those qualities you want and turn off those qualities you wish to avoid. The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. You can’t change at 60; the time to look at that list is now.

[ Read the rest here - thanks to Dang Le for sharing!]

Robert Frank's @Google talk

Great talk by Economist Robert Frank at Google about economic basics and how instruction has chosen the more complex approach to it.

Take-home lesson: Keep things simple.

How are you Counting your Millionaires?

It's rather amusing to see advertisements everywhere which proclaims that there are XX thousand of millionaires in Singapore and then try to sell you a training package to teach you how to be one. I find it both misleading and ironic.

Why the number of millionaires / millionaires growth rate statistics is misleading:

1. Increased millionaires can be a product of inflation (which is really sky high at the moment). If there's anything one learns in finance, it's that the real value of money, not the numerical dollar figure that counts.
2. If the society can be viewed as a mostly closed, zero-sum system of wealth, a 5% GDP growth rate with a 10% growth rate of millionaires is not something to be jubilant about. It means that the wealth has somehow flowed from the poor to the rich, increasing income disparity. (Maybe by signing up for such trainings, people are actually aiding by making this a self-fulfilling scenario?)
   
3. General property boom (as known as the en bloc fiesta) last year probably made some people who happened to stay at the right place at the right time richer. Chances are, not all would know how to retain this wealth.
4. Ministerial Pay Increase (enough said).
5. Going forward, the latest budget measures like removal of estate tax would be beneficial to the high wealth individuals. Which means we could expect to see both (1) number of millionaires being maintained by less taxes, and (2) increased number of high wealth individuals being attracted to settle down here.
   

In any case, it still takes a massive, blindfolded leap of faith to say "number of millionaires are increasing" thus "you should take our training program". Two completely unrelated concepts if you ask me. The oft-asked question of why "people who know how to get rich don't just use it to get rich themselves?" remains. Mostly, the answer is they use you and our money to get rich, not the program. Remember, if a package is $1,000, all they need is 1000 sign ups to make them the millionaire, not you.

Thought of the Day

The key to everything is different levels of available information.

Which also explains why a good deal of economic theory fails.

Play Pump - Another Simple Answer to Drinking Water Shortages

When play does work and so much more... Sometimes, its really the simple, elegant ideas that make the most difference. Enter the Play Pump:

A life-changing and life-saving invention – the PlayPump® water system -- can provide easy access to clean drinking water, bring joy to children, and lead to improvements in health, education, gender equality, and economic development.

The PlayPump systems are innovative, sustainable, patented water pumps powered by children at play. Installed near schools, the PlayPump system doubles as a water pump and a merry-go-round for children.

[Play Pumps Official Site]

[See also : Watercone - Simple Answer to Drinking Water Shortage in Poor Areas of the World]

Hoiio Technopreneurship Challenge just wants cheap coders?

While its pretty obvious and common to see companies come to schools on the pretext of holding competitions to get students to solve business problems (branding, outreach, marketing.. etc) for them, this one feels like attempt to acquire code on the cheap.

Really have to read the Terms and Conditions carefully these days:

Excerpts (bold for emphasis) :

3.2 All intellectual property rights, if any, in the idea or concept demonstrated by the Solution will remain with the Sponsor. By entering this Contest and, specifically, by accepting any prize in connection with this Contest, each participating team agrees to grants to the Sponsor a royalty free, exclusive license in respect of all such intellectual property rights, if any, for the purposes of commercial exploitation of the idea or concept demonstrated by the Solution. By entering this Contest, each participating team grants to the Sponsor an option to exclusively license such intellectual property, if any, for the period of one (1) year following conclusion of the Contest, for the purposes of commercial exploitation of the idea or concept demonstrated by the Solution on detailed terms (to include any applicable royalties) to be agreed between the participating team and the Sponsor.

Simply -Winning solutions to become free for company to exploit (only if you take the prize... aha!) . Others are optional.

Thought of the Day

It is dangerous to allow the mundane nature of the masses sap one's ambition, yet it is foolhardy to move without purpose.

Use inaction as action: It is easier to observe standing still than moving.

Sit poised ,when the time comes, strike with ruthless clarity.

Yahoo Board Rejects Microsoft's Offer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Yahoo Inc.'s board plans to reject Microsoft Corp.'s bid to buy the Internet pioneer, The Wall Street Jornal reported on its Web site Saturday.

Board members concluded the unsolicited $44.6 billion offer massively undervalues the Web pioneer, a person familiar with the situation told the newspaper.

Would be interesting to see what a more accurate valuation would look like, and whether Google would still remain in race.

[source: Breitbart ]

Thought of the Day

Weak ties with people around you may be more important than you think because these are the ones who help connect you to other clusters of people/resources.

Thought of the Day

No one ever achieved greatness by doing something that the rules say they could do, rather, they went after something that the rules didn't say they couldn't do.

(US) College textbook prices up 186% since 1986

As any student knows, the costs of textbooks are an increasingly significant burden on the pocket. And while some professors do try their best to help alleviate the problem by being on selective on choice of class textbooks, sometimes there really isn't much of a choice they can make. On the supply side, publishers are able to control how often textbooks are revised (most of the time very minimally) to prevent a secondary market from forming; and distributors can control which books are available (due to profit-interests). From the demand side, it doesn't really help that most students are information aggregators rather than assimilators either.

But at the crux, the economic problem students face here is cost of books VS value of education. And that's a really hard one to argue against that.

Business Shrink brings an interesting article on this issue, highlighting the financial problem in the States and various alternatives :

Before you start to assume who is getting all of the profits in the business, let’s take a look at the numbers as released by the National Association of College Stores. They breakdown the price distribution in an easy to view layout.

College Textbook Profits
Publisher: 64.3 percent
Bookstore: 22.4 percent
Author: 11.6 percent
Shipping: 1.7 percent

The college textbook revolution is now ringing in with a new model and ideas with the power of the Internet, Web 2.0 companies and also environmental minds pulling together. There are offshoots of a variety of companies that are aiming to fix the rising textbook problems.

But my contention at the end of the day is still that given today's technological standards, educational information could be and should be available freely. Or publishers/distributors should become more creative in their handling of this issue of rising costs. On-demand publishing anyone?

Read the full article here: College textbook prices up 186% since 1986; enter revolution

Special interview Rick Falkvinge, the founder and the leader of Swedish Pirate Party

Interesting Interview from P2PConsortium which elucidates the opposite point of view we don't hear as much as the "cry thief" approach of MPA, RIAA and the rest :

In this special interview Rick Falkvinge, the founder and the leader of Swedish Pirate Party, gives his own views on the wildly heated political filesharing debate in Sweden, evaluates the political and technological prospects of P2P and talks about the dangers of citizen surveillance and Big Brother society.

Filesharing debate

Q: In last couple of months the copyright debate in Sweden seems to have got hotter than ever before, and especially the emergence of the reformist group within Moderate Party makes the situation look like the beginning of a 'final battle' before the legalization of filesharing. How do you read the situation? Is it possible that Reinfeldt government could actually end up assuming the reformist position and decriminalizing filesharing, or is it too otimistic to expect this to happen before your 2010 elections?

Rick Falkvinge: Gandhi once said something that has become a famous quote:

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

I interpret the current situation as a definite shift to phase three. That mainstream existing MPs for the largest party in government pick up and fight for our ideas is a huge legitimizer. Our ideas are not out on the fringe, we were just a little bit ahead of time.

What was remarkable was that this was the point where the enemy - forces that want to lock down culture and knowledge at the cost of total surveillance - realized they were under a serious attack, and mounted every piece of defense they could muster. For the first time, we saw everything they could bring to the battle.

And it was... nothing. Not even a fizzle. All they can say is "thief, we have our rights, we want our rights, nothing must change, we want more money, thief, thief, thief". And shove some poor artists in front of them to deliver the message. Whereas we are talking about scarcity vs. abundance, monopolies, the nature of property, 500-year historical perspectives on culture and knowledge, incentive structures, economic theory, disruptive technologies, etc. The difference in intellectual levels between the sides is astounding.

So now we know what the enemy has, and that they have absolutely nothing in terms of intellectual capital to bring to the battle. They do, however, have their bedside connections with the current establishment. That's the major threat to us at this point.

However, I don't see the established parties picking up understanding at the necessary level just yet. Some parties advocate legalized downloading with uploading still being criminal, which is a clear sign they have not understood the current structural changes to society in the slightest, but just have a hunch that something needs to be done. Of course, that is good in itself, but not enough.

Karl Sigfrid's own party, the Moderates, are technophobically luddite to the brink of the Stone Age as the official party line. Even though MPs in this party were the first to understand the issue thoroughly, I don't see their party line changing before the next election.

What Karl Sigfrid et consortes have accomplished, though, is to make sure that this is going to be a major issue in the 2010 parliamentary elections, possibly even the 2009 European elections. That's exactly what we want. We want as many as possible to reflect over the issue, discuss it, and try to understand what is happening, and realize it's important - more important than petty squabbles over, say, day care benefits. The more that do, the more we win.

And the more we win - both in terms of the idea and support for the Pirate Party - the more pressure on established politicians.

Global IPR revolution

Q: During your US speech tour last summer you came up with the idea of global IPR revolution starting in Sweden, then spreading to other European countries and from there to the whole world. Things seem to be so far on the track for your plan. How do you see the global situation yourself? Which countries and forces do you consider as biggest threats to this positive development you have envisioned? Any encouraging developments outside Sweden that you would like to mention?

Rick Falkvinge: What politicians at all levels have not understood is that the enemy is working internationally. If they get a victory in one country, their forces in every other country points there as a positive example and whine that they don't have the same advantages where they live.

For instance, France recently introduced a bill which would cut off Internet access for file sharers. This is one example of a draconian Orwellian measure that makes IFPI's and MPA's mouths water. The European Commission, frequently courted by the enemy, has not been given the time or opportunity to reflect on the situation as a whole - and so keep pushing for more draconian measures too, with European-wide DRM as the latest profound stupidity.

Sweden was a little bit ahead of its neighbors in terms of high-speed broadband penetration; I had 10/10 Mbit in 1998 and 100/100 today, neither of which is remarkable. When you give technology to the people, they discover what it can be used for. Whether this is the cause of Sweden's being ahead or not can be discussed, but I honestly see Sweden as leading the fight for free file sharing. When I speak to reporters abroad, I always get the question "with your proposal, how will the artists get paid?". I almost never get that at home anymore.

So in my experience, positive developments originate in Sweden and radiate outward, mostly underground at first. There is some significant intellecta in Silicon Valley about the situation, but they are not able to pressure politicians under the US' political system like we are.

I'll also quite selfishly take the opportunity to ask people to help us out financially. We have a program where you can donate a small amount every month through PayPal; every penny of steady income helps us spread the ideas, educate more politicians, and dropkick the existing establishment. See our donation page.

Remember, all of us do this in our spare time.

Privacy, integrity and P2P technology

Q: Lately you have started increasingly to pay attention to the issues of privacy and personal integrity. In the filesharing debate it seems that the personal integrity issue alone is a strong enough argument to justify the legalization of filesharing. If we assume that mainstream anonymizing p2p is just a few years away, nothing apart from a totalitarian control state and intrusive surveillance of home computers would make it possible to enforce copyrights in online communications. Do you share this view?

Rick Falkvinge: I do. The people who have been led to believe that file sharing can be stopped with minimal intrusion are basically smoking crack.

Early on in the debate, we dropped the economic arguments altogether and focused entirely on civil liberties and the right to privacy. This has proven to be a winning strategy, with my keynote "Copyright Regime vs. Civil Liberties" being praised as groundbreaking.

The economic arguments are strong, but debatable. There are as many reports as there are interests in copyright, and every report arrives at a new conclusion. If you just shout and throw reports over the volleyball net at the other team, it becomes a matter of credibility of the reports. When you switch to arguing civil liberties, you dropkick that entire discussion.

Anyway, anonymous encrypted P2P is just a few years off (and encrypted BitTorrent is already becoming ubiquitous). More interestingly, our cellphones are increasing in capacity dramatically. When P2P debuted with Napster in 2000, the average hard drive was the same size as my cell phone memory is today. Using technology already available, BlueTooth 2, I can share content from my cellphone anonymously - say, in a café or so. This will probably just accelerate, with cellphones being more and more capable, holding more and more data, and opening up to customized applications. I'm betting that a P2P app operating on Bluetooth is not far off for the iPhone, for example. Imagine the anonymous sharing that will happen in the background just on the average subway train! The possibilities are very, very encouraging.

File sharing will find new ways - any measure to stop it will be ineffective the instant it is in place.

In short, you cannot stop file sharing with any less than undoing digital communications and/or monitoring all of it. The Internet was created as the world's largest copying machine, as the makers of Steal This Film II put it so succinctly. File sharing happens simply because it is possible, as sharing knowledge and culture has always been, although with different media.

What really upsets me, though, is how politicians are humming along with the copyright industry's every demand. The industry lobby is just doing their job, basically: demanding better conditions for their industry, at the expense of other parts of society. It is the politicians which have failed abysmally at understanding the big picture of their demands.

Big Brother society

Q: Apart from filesharing, there seems to be a strong worldwide political pressure to implement various surveillance state infrastructures pushed forward with the antiterrorism arguments. The Swedish parliament seems to be no exception to this. Why do you think the politicians around Europe are accepting this dangerous development so easily, despite the historically recent experiences from East Germany's Stasi etc.? What makes them so blind to the risks of Big Brother state? Is Europe still suffering from terrorism hysteria or is there something else going on here? For example in Sweden, Piratpartiet seems to be the lone political force even worried about the hasty establishment of an Orwellian society. What could be done to counteract this development?

Rick Falkvinge: This is true, and it has me seriously worried. Not only are politicians implementing a big brother state, they are also confusing and joining the government interests with those of large corporations.

Now, remember the lexical definition of fascism: fascism n. a merging of corporate and government interests, typically adjoined with a drastic curtailment of civil liberties.

We know exactly where this road leads, for we have seen many walk it before us. And while each step can seem convincing, we know what the endpoint is.

Each step is usually justified by "efficient law enforcement". This is deceptive - for who would stand against a bill and demand INEFFICIENT law enforcement? In reality, it is a shift of power from citizens and civil liberties to law enforcement. There have been plenty of governments, historical and contemporary, where efficient law enforcement has been a priority: East Germany, Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, Pinochet's Chile, etc. The question that needs to be asked is if it's worth having that efficient a law enforcement, or if something else is lost on the way?

When the Iron Curtain fell, all of the West rejoiced that the East would become just as free as the West. It was never supposed to be the other way around.

What we can do is talk to one another about what is happening. The Swedish administration has been purposely deceptive and secretive about all new orwellian measures. There even exists a law proposal for the Police to take over people's home computers, allowing them to monitor nonsuspects using their own web cameras.

In the 1960's, there were dystopic movies about a big brother future where the government had installed cameras in every home. Now we're almost there. The only difference is that we bought the cameras ourselves.

A mass surveillance proposal for wiretapping every communication crossing the country's border was introduced in 2005, then retracted because - get this - it had received too much attention. It was reintroduced by the new administration and is pending a new vote this summer.

In summary, secrecy, fear and deception is the administration's friend in introducing the Big Brother state. What we can do about it is counteract that - which is as simple, and hard, as talking about it. Being vigilant about finding out new bills, new proposals, and talking about them with our friends, our colleagues, and in forums. Break the secrecy and tear down the veil. After all, politicians desire to get re-elected.

And nothing works better to get their attention than threatening that power base, as I discovered when I founded the Pirate Party.

[props to : P2PConsortium ]

Research shows Delicious Sights and Smells Sells

In one of the most interesting research I've seen in some time, NUS researcher Xiuping Li has found that "exposure to something that whets the appetite, such as a picture of a mouthwatering dessert, can make a person more impulsive with unrelated purchases". Research experiments performed included "one experiment that the aroma of chocolate chip cookies can prompt women on a tight budget to splurge on a new item of clothing"

So what does this mean that for retailers:

• Site shops next to Famous Amos and other such food outlets?
  
• Artificially create cookie (or other food?) scents / Start eating them in the shop?
  
• Design advertising with delicious items in them?
• Plaster designed advertising posters all over shop?
• Design Products with such delicious-looking elements?
  

Interestingly, only females seem affected in the study... So guys, you know which shops to avoid!


[from : ScienceDaily ]

New Navy Ad "Borrowed" Concept from Monty Python?

Just saw the new Singapore Navy Ad today.

Is it just me or do the ad creators also watch Monty Python?

Navy Ad:


Monty Python's "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" from the Movie "The Meaning of Life"