[physics/0506213] From old wars to new wars and global terrorism

Reading this gruesome study into fragmentation of 'attack units' in modern warfare, that Kottke linked to, it is clear that this is the mathematical model that should be used to examine niches in the 'Long Tail' debate.

I.E. The change in power law coefficient over time and its trend compared with G-7 terrorism or non G7-terrorism could be applied to standard co-efficients for low inventory mass market retail, bricks and mortar, vs unlimited inventory, niche market retail, the Internet.

I wonder what the standard power law coefficients are for these.

I still have a hunch that there are some non-linear affects and that fractals play a role in revealing the same pattern for niches within niches etc.

Niall Kennedy has a fair idea that Microsoft may be about to launch RSS search.

If I were Steve Jobs...

I would use the Gillette model (free fancy handle, pay for the blades) to sell value-add products like iPhoto on top of a free OS.

I would make power PC and the Intel version of OSX which has been worked on for a while - free.

Particularly in light of this:
Everyone wants 'free' Windows... | CNET News.com

Number of households in US: 101 million.

Local Services market value: $600 billion annual.

Household services: $180 billion annual.

Amount spent on local offline advertising by contracting and real estate businesses: $25 billion annual.

Dotcom investment in 10 online services during boom: $250 million [they were keen but too early]

Amount spent on advertising local services to households: anywhere between $50 -$90 billion annual [this is the biggest untapped revenue opportunity for search]

Largest category of services posting on Craigslist (taken by looking at a sample 2 days of postings): Sex services, 40% [i.e. Craiglist not a player yet, outside of jobs and real estate]

Largest category of Yellow pages advertiser: Attorneys, $856 million in 2001.

Largest single event resulting in Yellow Pages use: eldest daughter gets married [personalized search and user profiles will be important]

Number of Overture searches that explicitly have a city in the search: 4%

Number of Overture searches that have a term such as 'lawyer' or 'doctor': 8-11%

Years that Dex (the largest online version of offline Yellow Pages) have had search: 1 [the existing Yellow Pages providers are incumbents]

US Yellow pages advertising revenue: $13 billion annual
Local advertising budget in US: $22 billion

Total size of paid search marketplace: < $10 billion annual [i.e. less than existing Yellow Pages market]

This is why the battleground for search will be over Yellow Pages. It is now clear what the product will look like, and maps will play a big part.

Google ups ante in mapping rivalry | CNET News.com

I wonder if this Slate article, Are Subway Searches Legal? - The rules for searching bags. By Daniel Engber was written by someone that :

thought he had a point then realised that his argument was flawed;

added the paragraph at the bottom marked 'bonus explainer' which tries and fails to defend against the flawed logic in the main piece;

ran the story anyway.

There are very real civil liberty concerns post 911, they highlight the fact that democracy is built from a peaceful society. But cummon, screening bags for bombs before travelling is not one of them. There is nothing that takes away your liberty more than being blown to pieces.

Summary - piece highlights a claim that searching subway bags is 'unconstitutional', realizes that could be argued that is no diff from air travel searches. Tries to say that air travel is different because:

1. You have other travel options when flying vs taking the subway. (In fact it is more likely that you have more travel options when using the subway, as people from Hawaii).

2. Airline searches search everyone and where some people are singled out it is not at discretion of the security personnel (Er - bullshit).

Verisgn estimate that at least one in 50 new sites is a spam site. Given that the total number of weblogs is normally measured by those that are actually posted to, this does not account for the growing number of spam blogs.

I suspect that spam blogs actually account for an alarmingly high percentage of the total, and people like Technorati have to index them. A reputation system for blogs could effectively weed out this load.

Verisign reports that it:

"will change the way it reports the size of its domain name business, in terms of active registrations, because of the amount of speculation going on. It will reduce the size of the reported registrations by about 2%"

"Names are being bought and then tested against traffic analyzers," Sclavos said. "The ones that can generate more than the $6 or $7 [registration] fee per year are kept, the other ones are returned within the five day grace period."

With Google hosted blogs, there is no $6 fee, and and many spam term searches on bloglines or Technorati return hundreds of thousands of results.

Pay-per-click speculation market soaring - Computer Business Review

My bullshitters investing guide, based upon absolutely no analysis or experience. I don't even know if 'Hearst' is public - I don't care.

Iwonder how it will do? I'll check back in a year.

Pharma and cosmetics.

L'Oreal
They make proper sunscreen that the FDA haven't yet approved, apparently. Or so some geezer down the pub said.
Buy

All the best deals are here, but nobody understands it, including professional investors.
Buy into the people that make lab coats instead.

---------------

Media

Hearst
If big media doesn't own little electronic media -
Sell

Clearly all media is undergoing a massive revolution everything big is going tits up. But the small stuff that will replace it is not public. So only big people who can invest in VC funds etc. will make money out of the little guys.

---------------

Commodities:

Oil
There is no way that the Saudis are telling the truth about reserves.
Buy

Gold
Lot of bad stuff brewing in the newspapers
Buy if you are a wuss.

---------------

Retail

The People who make True Religion Jeans
Even bigger wankers have started to wear them recently
Sell

Walmart
Think Woolworths where everything is expensive cos. Chinese imports increase in price.
Sell - eventually

Wholefoods
A Texan hippy store, how perfectly hedged
Buy

Virgin (the music bit, or whoever owns them)
Once fresh brand, starting to look dated and shabby, like the music industry.
Sell

---------------

Tech and DOTCOM

Microsoft
Cummon they are not waiting to pounce. A company that sells Personal Computer software (small business computer software) when the market wants personal computer software.
Sell

In fact, sell all software companies, apart from the ones with call themselves media companies. Some of those are OK.

---------------

Real Estate:

Real-Estate in London.
London houses are too expensive, interest rates can only go up, doing anything in London is too expensive.
Sell

Real Estate in the US
Interest rates can only go up.
Sell

Real Estate near future Wholefoods in US
You are what you eat. Wholefoods is the best real estate developer in the US.
Buy

Real Estate in Croatia
I have never been there - the postcards of Dubrovnik look nice.
Buy

Looks like the pressure will continue for the Chinese Yuan to revalue. In true stupid amateur punter mode, am looking at a few possible investments.

Maybe I should be reckless enough to buy stock in a dotcom like Ctrip.com (CTRP), a consolidator of hotel accommodations and airline tickets in China.

They would benefit from Yuan revaluation in the short term if they don't buy too many Aeron chairs or hire people who used to work in enterpise software.

Q&A: what price the yuan? - Markets - Times Online

BuzzMetrics/Mouthpiece has a fantastic statistic - further analysis of a survey of awareness of the term 'blog' showed that two thirds of blog readers had never heard of the word blog or did not know what a blog was.

This is great news, it spells ubiquity. Memes need a buzzword to catch on, but by now blogs are more than online diaries.

The weblog publishing model, with built in syndication, tracking, real-time search, permanent, item based archiving and linking and easy to use publishing tools is the way everything will eventually be published on the web.

With magazines and professional websites being blog driven, blog refers to the way something is published not what. There is no more need to know what a blog is than know what an internal combustion engine is if you drive a car.

This is a paradigm shift as important as the browser. Web 1.0 was about reading (browsing and searching), Web 2.0 is about publishing.

For the investors that are looking to invest in blogs or RSS - that's like investing in HTML, the big story is publishing.

Interesting - by acquiring Intermix, Rupert Murdoch has picked up MySpace. Not only that, but Intermix was sued (and settled), having been accused of deception in bundling hidden spyware.

Two good reasons to ditch MySpace.

News Corp. to buy Intermix for $580 million | CNET News.com

If someone asks you to debate Evolution over Intelligent Design, scientifically - don't.

If you lose on technical grounds, then you probably shouldn't be out unsupervised, and if you win you will get some variant of this:

"You are too scientific and rational, one day you'll understand the true nature of the importance of being spiritual".

The counter argument to this, makes a much better opening move:

Believer: "If evolution is true and birds are descended from dinosaurs, can you tell me why there was a maintenance of hepatic-piston diaphragmatic lung ventilation in theropods throughout the Mesozoic?"

Atheist: "No".

Atheist: "Why do the insides of evangelical churches look like Donald Trump's bathroom?"

Believer: "Its what happens in a religious building that matters, not the architecture, think of all the music".

Atheist: "What, like the Osmonds, all the stuff Cat Stephens did when he converted to Islam or Uncle Harry's Bar Mitzvah Band?"

Believer: "No - like gospel".

Atheist: "Ray Charles improved gospel no end - when he took it out of the church."

Believer: "See, you can only make fun of things, is nothing sacred?"

Atheist: "No, nothing at all is sacred, I like it that way, fundamentalist stand up comics are not what they used to be."

Believer: "Unless you believe you will never be able to appreciate the beauty of things".

Atheist: "I specifically don't need something to be believable for it to be beautiful, when I read Orwell's 1984, I don't like what he describes, I don't literally think it happened, but its a work of art. If I read Harry Potter, I don't have to convert to paganism, I don't think its a great work of art, but its a good read. When I read the Bible I see a bunch of stories that contradict each other but that's not a problem, I just think, who edited this?"

Believer: "The bible is the ultimate beauty, because it is the truth".

Atheist: "You are too scientific, you cannot appreciate the bible on its artistic merits without believing it to be fact".

How to debate creationists without being boring (part 1.)

Ten years ago, I started a design company and our biggest client was Levis. Levis were trendy and they fed the trend by sposoring DJs and independent record labels and bands. We got the gig for Levis, in fact, because my business partner knew the manager of Massive Attack and Levis were involved in promoting Massive Attack's climb to fame.

Five years Later, when I moved to the US, Levis was in the process of a big fall from grace - and the business guys blamed it on late outsourcing and bad design.

Last month, I noticed that a few trendy people were wearing Levis in NY, in an almost ironic anti-fashion way. A bit like the daft Trucker Hat fad.

When New York bounced back from its 70's 'Taxi Driver' nadir, Giuliani was given credit for its revival, people proposed all sorts of theories, such as a trickle up effect from cleaning subway cars, others pointed out the obvious - perhaps its just a natural cycle.

This week Levis announced a 5 fold increase in profit for the quarter. No doubt people will laud their business acumen, but if the fortunes of an entire city can be cyclical then the fashion cycle of hipster to mainstream to hipster is almost certainly so.

I suspect the cult jean manufacturers True Religion and Seven for Mankind will shortly go the way of designer jeans after the 80s, and be adorning thrift shops everywhere. They are exactly out of phase will Levis.

APP.COM - Levi's second-quarter profit jumps almost fivefold

Andrew Orlowski writes:

"A new study conducted at Cornell University suggests that we think in analog, not digital. It's a bold claim which, if true, threatens to make thirty years of linguistics and neuroscience metaphors look very silly indeed."

The fact that our cats can calculate the required muscle flex and velocity to leap onto a table with food, but don't understand the meaning of 'no' and can't do simple arithmetic has always puzzled me.

However it makes sense that any system based upon learned statistical reaction to sensory input would create sophisticated responses without understanding them. In this instance ability to extract logical rules would be based upon a enormous amount of analog input that produced binary certainty as an emergent phenomenon.

The Reverse Turing test or 'captcha', usually contains a noise filled image of a password with warped fonts is used to filter humans from computers, to stop spam. In this instance a very simple digital message is encoded in a very analog way.

As captchas have become more sophisticated, in an arms race against algorithms designed to crack them, humans often make errors reading them. The fact that these errors become pronounced may indicate that we use statistical responses to patterns rather than an internal algorithm for reading captcha's - this would tend to indicate that our brains work in analog mode.

In other words, if we had an algorithm for reading captchas then it would be likely that we would either be entirely able or unable to decode any captcha created with the same algorithm, there would not be a statistical chance of failure.

The interesting thing about a captcha image is that it does not compress very well, while retaining fidelity - in other words the ratio of bits required for the analog message to the equivalent digital message is very high.

Current SETI searches assume that a signal would not have deliberate noise - that it would be separated from natural phenomena by its 'artificial' simplicity. One of the problems with this is that we have to look in areas that are naturally quiet, it is difficult to differentiate between a signal caused by a known or unknown natural phenomenon such as a quasar pulse or WOW signal and a deliberate message.

But what if someone were to try a Reverse Turing Test on us?

Are brains analog, or digital? | The Register

PBS' Guns Germs and Steel documentary took an hour and several tons of jet fuel to explain, well nothing. The documentary merely stated, but neither explained nor tested the hypothesis.

A great shame, because the book is still a hypothesis worthy of testing. I saw Jared Diamond talk about a year ago, and he had plenty of new evidence to add.

P Z Myers says it best:

"The information density is appallingly low, and what we got in an hour was the equivalent of reading a handful" of pages from the book."

I received a boat-load (very small boat) of email about me moaning about political blogs. So just to redress the balance, the mainstream media is crap too. Bah Humbug.

As an example, I always had a feeling that Wall Street Journal opinion pieces were written by cub hacks, or even cub scouts, rather than the editor. Its an otherwise excellent newspaper, ruined by painting by numbers editorial.

As Josh Marshall points out, today's is a particularly side-splitting classic of obsequious, foppish garbage, worthy of the court of Louis XVI:

"Wall Street Journal headline: "'Karl Rove, Whistleblower.'"

Translation: Rove told the truth, shower him with medals, everyone else has no integrity and is wrong.

Marshall:

"... can you blame them? Most of the kids there want White House jobs or other GOP-based promotions."

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall

When 911 happened, most people hadn't heard of bloggers or Wikipedia, there was no Feedster or Technorati, Google News did not exist*, there was no Flickr and people did not have camera phones.

These products and services are not a result of 911, but this was the event that created one facet of what is now an unshakable trend, real-time, ubiquitous, truly democratic media. The second phase of the web, where people could publish as easily as they could browse, was being born.

The thing that people used to laugh at when we pitched it originally while at Moreover, actually happened.

After the attacks last week in London, I thought that this would be the point where image sharing reached mainstream awareness for news gathering. Camera phones with ability to post via the web are more widespread than in the US and photo sharing has reached an inflection point.

In some ways this did happen, within a couple of hours, amateur pictures posted on the web were picked up by mainstream news services and there have been articles since pointing out the role of digital cameras and camera phones.

When I tried to create a real-time list of aggregated thumbnails of amateur news pictures, using Wists, I realized that things are still nascent.

I looked at over twenty photo sharing sites (some of which have far more users than Flickr) and other than a few images from moblogging sites in the UK the only site with images was Flickr and therefore there was little point in aggregating them.

In addition, the majority of the photos on Flickr were taken from people pointing their camera phone at television news. After the event, the most important images are those taken by CCT surveillance cameras.

None of this is that surprising, however, I'll bet one thing - that Google develops something more like Flickr and less like Picassa at some point, cos Flickr clearly demonstrates the future of image sharing.

*The fact that other search engines such as Alta Vista had news search (through Moreover), largely prompted Google to develop a news product.

New Scientist Premium- Evolution: Blink and you'll miss it - Features

"commercial fishermen use large-meshed nets to spare smaller fish... working on the principle that by reducing their haul this way, they can keep fish populations vigorous and healthy. But they could be making a terrible mistake. It is becoming increasingly clear that such well-meaning strategies may actually have the opposite effect to what the fishermen intend."

People usually claim that London taxis are prohibitively expensive and that driving in NY is impossible, however these conclusions wouldn't be the same if they were based purely on relative costs:

Suppose you lived two miles from the center of New York City or London and wanted to go to the town center for a one hour lunch by cab, subway or car, how much would the travel cost:

Cab:
London: $27.60
NYC: $15 [54% of London price]

Subway:
London: $8
New York: $4 [50% of London price]

Car:
London: $21.50
New York: $2.75 [13% of London price]

This is based upon the following data:

Cab:

1 mile cab ride (with 1 minute waiting time), excluding tips:

London: $6.90 (noon), $9 (midnight)
http://www.transportforlondon.gov.uk/pco/fares-detailed.shtml

New York: $3.70 (noon), $4.20 (midnight)
http://www.ny.com/transportation/taxis/

Car:

Toll for driving in city center:
London: $14
http://www.cclondon.com/

New York: $0.

Gas price per gallon
London: $7
http://www.yrl.co.uk/tony/fuel2/fuel2.html

Gas price per gallon
New York: $2.30
http://www.newyorkgasprices.com/

One hour, on street, metered parking:
New York: $2.50
http://www.parkingticket.com/about/press/release_040403.asp

London: $7 per hour
http://www.londontown.com/London/Public_Transport

Subway:

Single peak hour subway/tube ride within center:

London: $3.45, zone 1 ($4, zones 1-2)
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tickets/2005/single/tube.shtml

In light of today's attacks and me being increasingly annoyed with both right and left wing 'bloggards', I thought I would pick out a sample piece and fact check it:

Instapundit writes:

"UPDATE: Here are some interesting observations about the location of the attacks in London. "I have talked to a few people who have pointed out that Edgware, Aldgate (and Moorgate) and King's Cross all are in or adjacent to Muslim communities. King's Cross is the locale of The School of Oriental and African Studies, a highly respected institution teaching and researching Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It is possible that the attacks were as much directed at the Muslim population as much as the city at large."

1. There are many other stations that are near SOAS, such that Kings Cross is certainly not the local tube station to it. Also, SOAS's remit not Islam - hence the name.

2. Edgware is 10 miles from Edgware road, which is indeed a Muslim area. However the train was on its way to Edgware Road from somewhere else. The Edgware Road station is at the far end of the Muslim area of the Edgware Road on the boundary of what is certainly not a Muslim area.

3. Aldgate's nearest Muslim community is Bangladeshi, however it is closest to the rather bigger target, the Financial district.

4. These tube stations are way underground, with no damage to the surface areas.

Like numerology, given the ethnic diversity of London you could pretty much link these three area to any community with similar (in)accuracy.

None of these places show any particular 'alien' population pattern any more than a crop circle shows where aliens will land.

I have been reading political blogs to try and find out what makes particular ones good meme spreaders. One the left I looked at Eschaton and DailyKos and on the right Instapundit and Little Green Morons.

Conclusions: The left is full of crop circle paranoids. The right is full of stupid angry people.
The sheer volume of information in both does manage to strip things to bare bones facts, but not by virtue of intelligence, just volume - like a colony of bacteria feeding on a corpse.

Analysis still seems to be better in MSM - so I'll be sticking to my favorite publications for the moment: The Economist and Atlantic Monthly.

Great New York Metro piece on Judy Miller from a while back:

"...when there is trouble, it appears she’s more than happy to pass around the responsibility...when Miller co-bylined a story with Douglas Jehl on the WMD search that included a quote from Amy Smithson, an analyst formerly at the Henry L. Stimson Center. A day after it appeared, the Times learned that the quote was deeply problematic. To begin with, it had been supplied to Miller in an e-mail that began, “Briefly and on background”— a condition that Miller had flatly broken by naming her source..."

The article shows someone who is obsessively ambitious.

Would someone who has previously disclosed sources for personal gain refuse to do so for personal loss?

Judith Miller's WMD reporting - New York Times war reporting - Hunt for WMD

Cooper to talk.

My guess is that Miller Gossiped, i.e. the leak went Judith Miller (NYT) -> Administration -> Cooper (Time) and Novak (WaPo).

Whether there is any evidence that Plame's name went twice around the merry-go-round (Administration -> Miller) is another matter.

Whatever the scenario, what amazes me is that few people seem to question that this was a vindictive act rather than a cockup.

Google News Search: "senior White House official.

Several hundred news items with various 'senior White House officials' quoted as sources for a bunch of stories.

One good thing that could come out of the Plame case is less of this speculative nonsense or spin.

MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case

This would be the most ironic story ever - Journo leaks via unknown source - Supreme Court rules that journos have to give up sources - Supreme Court member resigns - Rove gets to be spindoctor for replacement - MSNBC analyst says that Rove was the leaker.

"Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name--and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove."

Somehow this doesn't ring true. This rumor has been around blogs for a while, but this is the first time I've seen a major outlet cover it. It couldn't be true, could it?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US accepts Earth is warming in bid to avert clash

In a massive u-turn over global warming a government statement says:

"We know the surface of the Earth is warmer and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem"

Perhaps David Holcberg (the guy that the Ayn Randis booted out for saying that people shouldn't donate to tsunami victims) will be the last person on Earth to deny it.

That is until someone creates an 'Intelligent Design' version.