Udo's Techblog

People absolutely love their content-neutral blurry one-minute clips. The king of short video is of course still YouTube. Ah, the joy of clicking through a 15-part series of meaningless 50-second webisodes!

Not me though. Google Video may live on borrowed time, but I totally dig both the ">20 minutes" search option and the fact that there are lots of very cool long videos that are hosted on the doomed service itself. I guess that means I'm finally getting old and have completely lost touch with trends and reality. Or maybe I'm the last person on earth who hasn't either succumbed to catastrophic ADD or lost all interest in content that can't be boiled down to a 50 second tabloid soundbite?

Via Responsible Nanotechnology: CRN is running an article called The Fermi Death Sentence, which infers that there must be some barrier preventing advanced civilizations from forming.

The Fermi Paradox, of course, concerns itself with the mathematical probability of life and finds that, even when using very conservative numbers, the universe is teeming with it. More importantly though, Fermi asks the question: if the universe is full of life, why isn't the sky full of flying saucers? Why isn't our radio spectrum totally polluted with extrasolar transmissions? Why are there no artifacts on earth suggesting somebody was here before us?

CRN and many others conclude from this that all intelligent life is doomed and thus a colonialization or even exploration of the galaxy a scientific impossibility. Since CRN concerns itself with nanotechnology, they think about how maybe the development of nanotech could be the final nail in the coffin of all intelligent beings.

Using statistics to make "definite" assumptions about singular instances (a.k.a. humanity's existence in this case), Mike Treder allows for 3, and only three, possible scenarios:

We are the first intelligent beings capable of expanding into the cosmos and making our presence known. There have been no others.

There have been others before us, but all of them, without exception, have chosen -- or somehow been forced -- to expand in such a way that they are presently undetectable by our most sophisticated instruments.

There have been others, but all of them, without exception, have run into a cosmic roadblock that either destroys them or prevents their expansion beyond a small radius.

If nothing else, this example beautifully illustrates the dangers of applying statistics to single events. I'm sure, everyone of us can think of dozens of reasons for the status quo and none of them requires the scientifically improbable conclusion that every single intelligent race wiped itself out with nanotechnology (or bio warfare, or climate change, or whatever).

Just a few of them might include or be any combination of:

• We might be living in the galactic equivalent of a national park.


• Evidence is there, but it's being covered up.


• Our part of space has not been colonized yet or it was "recently" sterilized by a cosmic event.


• Our patch of space was colonized, but so long ago that the evidence is gone now.


• Only primitive civilizations use radio waves (because they're very impractical at long distances).


• The Singularity already happened and/or we're living in a simulation.


• The advancement of virtual reality makes space exporation unattractive.

Diclaimer: These are in no particular order, by no means complete, I'm not believing in any particular one of them. These are just more theoretical possibilities.

I am just trying to show that the Fermi Death Sentence argument attempts use misguidedly applied mathematics to elevate a point that would otherwise be merely one more theoretical possibility among many. As they say in reality TV: you decide.

I can't decide whether this AP story on CNN is sponsored by some airline association, or rather directly by filtering software companies. Claiming to act in the best interests of their customers, airlines will eventually install WLAN on their planes (hefty surcharges apply, no doubt) but won't give them unhindered access because that would supposedly aggravate luddite passengers.

See, if you had free (as in not filtered) internet on planes, people would be "yapping endlessly" on VOIP, which is so much more disruptive than today's non-tech loudmouths who believe their neighbors really want to hear awesome stories about their personal achievements to no end, or the constantly crying and bickering children of the jumbo-sized family in row 15. Of course the censoring of VOIP connections would have absolutely nothing to do with the horrendously expensive cell phone and in-cabin phone access the airlines will be offering soon.

It's not really like you can vote with your feet, either, mainly because they all provide equally sucky service and equally horrendous prices at an equally low service level.

I'll admit that Fake Steve Jobs is not exactly my favorite blog. The idea is kind of neat but the guy brakes character just as often as he posts using his fake persona. And that irritates me, but I guess that's hard to explain. Anyway, there is this whole "FSJ Shutdown Drama" unfolding: allegedly Apple made scumbaggy legal threats to FSJ, including sending the guy a list of all his assets implying that he's got a nice hobo future cut out for him if he resists.

Well, I say allegedly because there is some discussion whether this is real or just a grandiosely scripted finale for the FSJ blog. I was inclined to believe Lyons since Apple already shut down ThinkSecret in a similar matter. But then again, maybe everyone who trusts just a single word coming out of that blog is an idiot.

Somehow, both alternatives make me angry when I should just be ignoring this whole thing. If Apple really forced FSJ off the net using the tactics described, that makes me very ashamed that I (until recently) kept on buying their stuff. Every once in a while reports come in about Apple's bullying behavior, but somehow this was the last straw for me. And if that story is true, I'll also regret all the times I recommended people buy Apple products and consequently stop doing so.

Yeah, and if they didn't do this, they should sue Lyons for libel. I hope they sue his ass off. This is not parody anymore, and stupid people, including me, will stop buying Apple stuff because of a story that turned out to be a lie.

So, results are not in yet. I'll have to wait for an appropriate target to manifest for my ineffectual anger and psychotic disappointment. My patience with both Apple and Fake Steve has definitely run out.

Update (it's all a lie):

Yeah. It's like that y'all. Sorry for any confusion, but it's all a joke. Only it's not really a joke, is it? I mean people actually are getting paid to shut up. For real

Yeah, that's what I thought. Still, until the recent, over-the-top updates, I gave you the benefit of a doubt. Unsubscribed. FSJ, if Apple decides to sue your sorry attention-grabbing libeling ass, I'll be there to cheer them on.

On a more positive note, I can now resume to cuddle my MacBook without feeling betrayed. It is the finest little machine I have ever owned and I'm really loving it. Not, you know, in a creepy psycho kind of way. But still.

In other news, it's Christmas eve and I'm sick. :-(

Ulteo uses what looks like a VNC-like remote desktop solution that runs inside web browsers to provide an online services for the OpenOffice suite. Check it out! The obvious, unsolvable problem is of course latency (since every screen update requires a full round-trip between client and server) but other than that, it's pretty interesting. And they give users up to one GB of online storage for documents, too.

Just one minor pet peeve with Ulteo's site and applications: they force a user interface language on you based on your location, god I really hate that. And the manual language selection you make on your site profile doesn't carry over to the remote desktop app, so you have to override your language twice. Oh well...

Three major signs Google Video is being phased out:

- Google Video homepage shows 80% Youtube video content links
- Youtube is an option now in the Google Services dropdown menu
- Google Techtalk videos now seem to be on Youtube exclusively

Wow, this really sucks. Mainly because I can't download videos for offline use anymore. Oh well, I guess the platform was too consumer-friendly to last.

Looks like the creators of Hulu just don't get the nature of the internet. On the other hand, this was 100% as expected, so I didn't get my hopes up... Stupid, stupid, stupid!



How hard can it be to make a freaking TV station for the 'net? Apparently, it's impossible. Note to content providers: if you don't provide any legal means to consume your content, people will do it illegally. That's a shame, because you're not only missing out on advertising income but also go so far as turning away consumers who are willing to pay for your stuff. Illegal, free P2P networks are not your competition. Your only competition is your own mind-boggling stupidity.

All this recent complaining about the horribly botched UAC got me thinking. Also, I had to install a lot of stuff on several computers and different operating systems recently. There is a kind of obvious observation about all OSes' security systems: they all work exactly the same.

It doesn't matter whether you're on XP or OS X or Vista or Linux: you execute an installer with administrator privileges and then you sit down and pray to your favorite tech-deity the installer does exactly what it promised you beforehand instead of, say, installing a rootkit or something.

Is it really essential for installers to have root? No, certainly not! If an operating system would provide a compartmentalization mechanism it wouldn't be necessary for 99% of all apps that you ever wanted to install.

The idea is simple: every app gets a designated little bucket where it can put its files and its user data. The system even creates a user account for the app to run as, it doesn't even have to run under the current user's account in most cases.

This would virtually guarantee that neither the installer nor the application itself can do anything shady to your system. But there is more. Let's face it, the most sensitive part of your electronic home isn't the operating system, as all the software stuff can be re-installed when something goes awry. No, the most important stuff on your computer are your files! It doesn't really make sense to grant every application access to all your files. Even if by some miracle a malicious piece of software doesn't manage to get privilege elevation, it still can freely delete, corrupt or upload all of your data.

So, compartmentalization can be an easy answer. Nothing more secure than a program that can't see or access anything else but its own little world. It's a simple and workable alternative to the increasingly complicated soup of security applets and kernel layers and whatnot. Why is nobody working on this?

Hey, over thousand people had a look at InstaRPG, my attempt at building a creative commons RPG ruleset! Thanks for the suggestions. All in all it was pretty well received if you consider it's only the basic building block that's available right now. While you can start playing your stuff within minutes using nothing but the InstaRPG rules, I agree that it's more fun when you have source material or even concrete campaign/adventure material ready. That's why I'm working on the InstaRPG Fantasy Module, but as I got very little time it's progressing slower than anticipated. I'll probably post a beta version first and wait for some suggestions until I publish the final draft, too.

Thanks for being patient! :-)

The Clinton campaign sent out the following message (in part):

Every day in this campaign I hear things being said about Hillary that aren't true. It's just not the Hillary I know.

The Hillary you and I know will make us proud as president. We want to make sure that those of us who know Hillary and know the kind of person she is and public servant she's been share our stories with others.

It's a mind-bogglingly stupid PR move.

OK, people. I know it's sad that a foreign national with no political experience has to tell you this, BUT. Next time, you want to somehow smooth over your opponents' FUD, don't make it sound like your candidate just committed mass murder and you're just the neighbor who's on CNN saying "but she was such a nice person, really, you wouldn't have thought she'd be capable of something like that".

I don't understand how campaign staff think it's a good idea to send out emails implying that the whole world has ganged up on their candidate while at the same time complaining on a purely subjective basis. Dear staffers, people still believe that you are the guys who might actually know what's correct and what's not about the attacks on Hillary! It's not very confidence-inspiring when your best defense is "gosh, in my heart I don't believe these things are true". Instead, here are THREE options what you can do in such a case and they're all better than what they came up with:

1) Ignore the personal attacks. That's the least you can do, don't make your opponent's work easier by spreading those rumors yourself. Instead just let them talk. By not stooping to their level you imply that their attacks are without substance and not worthy of a response.

2) Defend yourself, with facts. Don't say "our candidate is so nice, I don't think she's be capable of this bad thing everybody accuses her of". Instead say: "Governor X said blablabla. This is ridiculous because rahrahrah. I present you with these facts. Judge for yourself." End of story.

3) Shoot back. With facts. Anything goes that makes your opponent look bad, but here's the catch: it has to be true. Attack hard, but build trust as you are doing it. And yes, this may - from time to time - include saying honest things like "I made a mistake". Here's they deal: even though it's obviously bad your candidate made a mistake, it's still better to admit it and demonstrate at least some rudimentary learning curve. Baseless mud slinging just costs both candidates votes.

Never, never, opt for the mass murderer's neighbor defense strategy when you can do any one of these three points instead.