RAD Thoughts

“Taking an orphaned animal home is not legal in New Brunswick without a permit,” said Mr. Delong. “And permits are not generally issued for someone to take an animal home to take care of it.”

This from a Globe and Mail story about a man who performed a caesarean section on a pregnant deer that layed dying at the side of the road after being struck by a pick-up truck.

So I’m curious whether the journalist who wrote the article is emphasizing the legal/illegal aspect to add tension to this interesting story. It is hard to believe that the Department of Natural Resources officials in New Brunswick are debating whether or not to charge this man.

Global warming may lead to an increase in kidney stones disease.

Rising global temperatures could lead to an increase in kidney stones, according to research presented at the 103rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA). Dehydration has been linked to stone disease, particularly in warmer climates, and global warming will exacerbate this effect. As a result, the prevalence of stone disease may increase, along with the costs of treating the condition.

Objective science at its best.

So let me get this straight… the Liberals propose a favorable change to the current RESP (Registered Education Savings Plan) rules that passes and the Conservatives turn around and want to squash the bill because it represents an irresponsible tax cut for the wealthy.

Mr. Flaherty defended the government’s approach as adequate and affordable. He said he was unconcerned about a backlash from voting parents excited by the prospect of a new tax break because only wealthier families would benefit from Mr. McTeague’s proposal.

“If you’re rich, it’ll be a popular plan,” Mr. Flaherty said.

Perhaps the backlash will not come from voting parents but from conservatives/libertarians that cringe when politicians use socialist talking points. No Comrade Flaherty, we shall never allow those nasty bourgeoisie take more money from the proletariat.

First those nasty retirees getting filthy rich off of income trusts were knocked down a notch or two now its time to go after parents trying to save for their kids education. Privileged SOBs… you go get’em Jim.

In response to an audience question during Mix 2008, Steve Ballmer downplayed Apple’s aspirations for the iPhone in the enterprise.

We’ve licensed ActiveSync for a while. That’s been an option that’s been available to Apple. It was certainly an option we knew Apple might take advantage of.

The Microsoft Exchange Protocol License is the key to Apple’s announcement and is a major enterprise coup for Apple. There is no way that Apple could have made any kind of headway in the enterprise space without it. This will hurt microsoft’s enterprise business as much, if not more, than RIM’s. Microsoft Exchange push e-mail/calendar is the only viable competitor to the Blackberry Enterprise Server (an adapter/plug-in for Exchange, Lotus Notes, and Groupwise).

The iPhone is a very different device than the Blackberry. With its thumb keyboard the Blackberry is the device of choice for writing e-mail. The iPhone, with its built-in WiFi and very functional mobile browser makes an ideal platform for any kind of enterprise application that does not require a great deal of free form text entry.

I’m not sure I.T. will embrace the iPhone but I don’t think this is required for it to be successful in the enterprise. The iPhone will be brought into the enterprise by employees who have purchased the device themselves. WiFi access is an effortless first step. Access to existing enterprise web applications is the next step. Exchange push is a natural third step, especially if Microsoft Windows Mobile devices are already supported.

I love stories like these… strategic decisions that have unintended consequences that reach far beyond the original scope. Microsoft has enabled a new competitor in the mobile enterprise space when their only intent was to knock RIM down a notch or two.

Well well. I might be smarter than I look.

This is another post about the long running Hobbit vs. Pygmy debate. The debate is about the hominid skeletal remains found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003. Some say it is a Hobbit (new species Homo floresiensis) and others say it is a Pygmy Homo sapien. In my original post I put my money on the species being a Pygmy H. Sapien (a very small version of our species).

In my next post I backtracked after new evidence seemed to be pointing at a Pygmy H. erectus.

Well, a new theory claims that the Hobbit is H. sapien suffering from severe iodine deficiency.

…comparisons of the fossils with modern bones suggested that they were actually human, with their small stature and distinctive features the result of a condition related to severe iodine deficiency.

According to this theory, the Flores Hobbit is a human suffering from cretinism. Score another one for Occam’s razor (for now).

Intel announced the Atom, a milliwatt x86 CPU that was mentioned here just about a year ago.

These new chips, previously codenamed Silverthorne and Diamondville, will be manufactured on Intel’s industry-leading 45nm process with hi-k metal gate technology. The chips have a thermal design power (TDP) specification in 0.6-2.5 watt range and scale to 1.8GHz speeds depending on customer need. By comparison, today’s mainstream mobile Core 2 Duo processors have a TDP in the 35-watt range.

I find it interesting that the press release does not even mention the word “phone”. I’m guessing this means that the new Atom chips are not low powered enough for smart phones like the iPhone.

Regardless, it looks like we are reaching an important milestone… the x86 architecture applied to the mobile and embedded space on a large scale.

Marc Andreessen writes that he is impressed by Obama.

We asked him directly, how concerned should we be that you haven’t had meaningful experience as an executive — as a manager and leader of people?

He said, watch how I run my campaign — you’ll see my leadership skills in action.

As a Canadian my opinion is without consequence. The other day I listened to a CBC Radio “Search Engine” Podcast (a “best-of” re-run actually) which included an old piece about Obama and his campaign. The story was about Joe Anthony and how the Obama campaign treated him over his Obama MySpace page which had 160,000 friends.

I thought the story pointed out a fundamental issue with Obama (or maybe his supporters). The Joe Anthony story demonstrates a disdain for entrepreneurs and individuals that accomplish things outside of official channels.

Obama certainly has a gift. The man is a joy to listen to. Either he or is speech writers have true talent when it comes to the material. The upbeat message is a wonderful change. But the man had an opportunity to take charge and correct a silly mistake made by his campaign managers and he failed. Obama talked to Joe Anthony and did not use the opportunity to make things right.

The Obama campaign appears to be firing on all cylinders but its unclear to me whether any of it is due to great leadership or just a powerful popular movement. The Joe Anthony story is one small anecdote but an important one in my mind. Is there anything behind the gifted inspirational speaker? He delivers “I Have a Dream” speeches that move people to tears but is there a “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” that outlines the structure underlying the dream?

According to PopPhoto’s First Look at the Sigma DP1, what seems to be the first version of a UnicornCam has a APS-size image sensor and a 28mm f/4 prime lens.

Since it was first announced a year and a half ago, Sigma’s DP1 (street: $799) has been creating buzz. Yes, that’s the same base Foveon X3 chip as its DSLR brother, the SD14, taking up a whopping .5 x .8 square inch of real estate in this compact camera. But the DP1 has all new microlenses, a new Three-layer Responsive Ultimate Engine (”TRUE”) processing, a specially designed 28mm f/4 equivalent lens

28mm f/4 doesn’t really turn my crank.  The article includes some test shots. The images are not exactly low-noise, but it will be interesting to see how the camera compares to low-end DSLRs in the noise department.

As I discussed in Imponderable Decisive Moment Compact Camera Challenges, the UnicornCam will always represent a compromise.  The compromise in the Sigma DP1 UnicornCam is the lens. 28mm is wide but not quite wide enough for interesting shots. Its a bit too wide for street photography. f/4 has way too much depth of field for decent portrait shots. Great for crowd shots. Protest march anyone?

Exactly 365 days ago, but not the same date (I’ll get to that in a second), I wrote about Parallel Dave Worlds. Although I’d like to wish Dave L. (who lives in a LOOPY world) a happy birthday, I want to focus on Dave F. who lives in a FANTASTIC world today.

You see, Dave F.’s FANTASTIC world has developed a bit of a… well, somewhat of a wormhole for lack of a better word. Dave F. celebrates his 10th birthday today. The wormhole part comes in to play when you realize that Dave F. will celebrate his 10th birthday in the same year that his daughter celebrates her 10th.

Depending on how you do the math, Dave F. is turning 40 which I am told is an important milestone. Count the number of times the man has celebrated the date of his birth, February 29th, and you get the number 10. Having a whole day to celebrate your birthday is a gift in itself when you normally celebrate in the fleeting moment between February 28th and March 1st.

Happy birthday Dave F., Dave L., and all the Leap Year-ians out there.

I love outdoor black garbage bags with the quick tie feature. Instead of a straight cut, the top of the garbage bag is cut in a curved shape so that you end up with two longer edges that are easy to grab.

Now I’m sure that quick tie was a wonderful feature on its own. Many garbage bag executives probably struggled with the idea of re-engineering their manufacturing processes to add this functionality. For me, I couldn’t care less about the extra handle-like feature. So why do I love them?

Well, having the curved cut has a positive side-effect. A spandrel in evolutionary biology terms.  The curved cut allows me to easily tell the “open” edge from the sealed edge. No more pulling back and forth between the two edges unsure of which side is supposed to open.

Now I’m sure there are other ways to distinguish edge that opens from the sealed edge but it makes me happy that this minor irritation was fixed inadvertently by a feature designed with a whole different purpose in mind.

RADBags with New Opening Detection Technology.  What a wonderful discovery :-)

Economist Steven Landsburg thinks Huckabee’s FlatTax plan is brilliant.

Basically, Huckabee’s plan is to eliminate the income tax and replace it with a national sales tax. To a first approximation, that’s not such a radical change. As long as you spend what you earn, a sales tax feels just like an income tax. If you earn $1,000 a week and spend $1,000 a week, it doesn’t matter whether I take 20 percent of your income or 20 percent of your spending.

Bottom line for Landsburg is that the FairTax is a sneaky way of getting an unlimited IRA. He likes the idea of an unlimited IRA because it encourages savings.

I think the brilliance of the FairTax is that it makes a number of sneaky changes without really stating that its doing so. As far as I can tell it eliminates corporate taxes, payroll taxes (i.e. social insurance), and progressive tax rates down to two (no tax and normal tax).

All these types of changes are fine in my opinion but I’m not fond of the sneaky nature of the change. If you want to eliminate existing tax categories I think it is important to make your case for each elimination.

There is also a fundamental flaw in the FairTax. Any savings that a person accumulated in the old income-based system will now be double-taxed using the new sales-based system (if the person chooses to spend that money). There is no way around this as far as I can tell.

Punishing retired people is not usually a good political strategy… even if its endorsed by Chuck Norris.

The TED conference videos often touch on important world issues. In this video Yossi Vardi talks about how you can Help Fight Local Warming. Local warming potentially impacts half the population of the world. This video may make you cry. Make sure you are seated when viewing :-)

The Wall Street Journal reports that the energy bill passed by the U.S. Congress last month will effectively ban incandescent light bulbs by 2012.

Representatives of Philips and General Electric, two of the biggest lightbulb makers, say there’s nothing to be concerned about. And Larry Lauck of the American Lighting Association says, “I think everyone’s pretty happy” with the new law. But then, the lighting industry has no reason not to be: People will need light, whatever the law says–according to Randy Moorehead of Philips, there are four billion standard-size (or “medium base”) light sockets in America alone.

So if you’re GE or Philips or Sylvania, the demise of the plain vanilla lightbulb is less a threat than an opportunity–an opportunity, in particular, to replace a product that you can sell for 50 cents with one that sells for $3 or more.

Goofy if you ask me.