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There was a time when the gods were bored to death, but because they couldn’t actually die, they started writing down all their knowledge to pass the time. Virtually everything known to them was written on the ancient manuscripts and organized by topic, cross-linked with other topics, in a very simple yet complete language that described everything to the last detail.

Time passed, universes were created and in some of them, creatures developed critical thinking. With that, came science and with science, the logical conclusion that gods didn’t actually have to exist was inevitable. So inevitable that finally, without delay, the gods actually died. For the curious minds, that fact is based on the quantum principle that, if no one sees it, it doesn’t actually exist.

Yet, for the great benevolence of the Universe, the manuscripts were kept and for billions of (Earth) years (relativistically speaking, of course), they were forgotten. But everything that is lost is waiting to be found, and in a very small speck of dust, in a completely irrelevant galaxy on the (multi-dimensional) margins of one of the universes, a yet-to-be intelligent race found a way to the manuscripts. However, their intelligence was not enough to uncover the whole truth. They could only gather hints and pieces of what once was the complete knowledge of everything.

It was much more of a coincidence, really, that so many of those beings would channel the truth through their fingers and type them, guided by the manuscripts themselves, on a remote system that all the other beings would go and search for knowledge. Some would misguide them, of course, and others would fight over the truth, for no one really know how to interpret such manuscripts. Seeing such confusion and regress, the Universe decided to create a game, on which such frivolous beings could channel their good side instead, even if not consciously knowing so.

The Game

The game is very simple and is meant to beings with very limited mental and social capacity.

The younger member starts by clicking on the “Random Article” link on any Wikipedia page, or by choosing a subject from the main page. After that, the following rules must be repeated until the players are tired or bored to death:

1. The current player must explain (out loud) what the article is about and think of a related subject. The relation can be of any kind.
2. The other players would then decide if the relation is valid and the player should then go to the related page.
3. If the relationship is valid and approved, the points are counted on the following manner:
   • 1 point if the article exists, +3 points if the player enhances it.
   • 3 points if the article doesn’t exist, +9 points if the player creates it with a stub.
4. The player on the right goes next.

Of course, at least one access to Wikipedia is necessary, but many can be used simultaneously. It is considered foul play to tamper with the contents of the pages just to get extra points (remember, the gods won’t be pleased at all!).

In between games, there is a way to get extra points for the next round. If the player proves that he/she enhanced Wikipedia pages quoted from a previous game (change logs suffice), he/she gets +3 points at the start of the next game for every considerable change (10 or more words) in a single page. Multiple changes in the same page counts as one change and the points can only be counted if the change happened between the last game and current, so the same change cannot be considered twice. Creation of new pages related to the subjects mentioned also count as change.

The Winner

The winner of the game is obviously the one that gets most points, but the real winner is the society. Knowledge has no owner, no boundaries, no limits. The more you share, the more society benefits. Knowledge is power, and you can give it for free, as easy as writing an email… to the world.

Spam is good for you, at least better than you may think. Spam accounts for three quarters of all emails sent worldwide and some even attached carbon footprint to it (and here one of the reasons why it’s nonsense). But it’s good for you in ways that does not meet the eye very easily and very few people would even consider it as good in the first place.

Not only emails, think on how much regular mail you receive is really worthy and how much is spam, it’ll probably account for three quarters as well. How much of that is really mean, how that really hurts you so bad that you’d put the sender in jail for it?

Sure spam is a nuisance, sure it gets in the way of the real work, but at what cost are we, the society, willing to pay to eradicate such problem? Well, lets take a look on how spam really started…

Local business

You’re a window cleaner and recently moved to Shlobershire in a very quite little village. How would you let people know about your business? You can go on, talking to each one of the local residents but that’s a nuisance, so you print some pamphlets and post through the door of everyone.

Some will read and call you, some will be pissed off but most will just ignore you. You’ll figure out pretty quickly about those that got pissed off (if you live in a small village you know that already), but then you buy them a pint and everything is settled.

What’s the final cost? A few pamphlets, a couple pints and you got two great things: one or two windows to clean and the whole village knowing who you are. This is, by far, the cheapest marketing ever. The rest of us that can’t afford a real marketing campaign have to find ways to promote our business.

With all the fuss about global warming, organic farming and fair competition in business (if there is such thing), we want to promote and use more of local business than big brands. We’re loosing creativity, diversity and quality if we don’t.

ROI

Just like the local business, some people can’t afford big marketing campaigns. Either because they’re poor or because their business is not so legal in every country.

So, why people still send those stupid ill edited loosely formatted emails, even when it’s obvious what they want? Who wants pills, fake degrees or enlarge their penises? Well, apparently some do and the do reply and may well get what they want!

The return of investment is much, much better than most marketing campaigns. Take Microsoft’s campaign with Jerry Seinfield or the “I’m a PC” thing? It was the most expensive piece of crap ever done. Seriously, I prefer spam than that!

The return rate is very low, one reply in millions of email, but if they send billions of emails, go figure.

But that’s clearly bad, isn’t it?

Well, illegal activities are bad, of course. Either on-line of off-line, drug dealing is bad, banking scams are bad, but not all spam is a scam or a drug selling point.

First, people receive so much spam from normal companies (even those that they have explicitly opted-out) including broadband providers, software, telephone and TV etc and etc.

The smaller companies are still sending physical spam and it’s probably working much better than the electronic spam, but that’s the deal: it works and it’s cheap.

Second, what’s really illegal? Downloading a music you haven’t paid for is illegal? What if you will pay later? What if the author allowed you to? Ripping your CDs to MP3 to listen in your car is illegal? You have paid for it already!

Google has become target of many accusations of illegal behaviour because they host a number of websites, videos, personal profiles on social networks. If people started to massively upload child pornography to YouTube, would the Google guys be in jail? I bet my little finger they wouldn’t.

RIAA kills a kitten every time you download (or rip) a CD while governments detain people for years on maximum security prisons without a single charge, what’s really legal?

Pirate Bay scam

I still don’t believe it happened, even though it was on all major journals for a week, but the Pirate Bay guy actually got a jail sentence for owning a website that allowed people to share files. They’re not criminals, they’re not killing people or (more importantly) getting in the way of the course of business (after all, money is more important than peoples lives nowadays). They just set up a list of things.

File sharing is one of the biggest revolutions of the recent internet and more and more people are asking the industry to finally adopt the technique rather than fight it. Whether they like it or not, it will prevail.

What is worse, a few old ladies downloading very old music (unavailable from any shop in the world) or the fear that the recording industry poses on most governments today that allowed such a scam to ever being turn into reality?

One mistake does not justify the other, but many (sane) people are already saying: Stop fighting reality, come back to it, be part of it.

You can’t fight them, help them!

I can’t imagine a world where we wait people to deliver a pamphlet to hand-cuff them, or where someone is jailed for listening music in his player’s speakers. Unfortunately, we’re not that far from it.

Why spam works? Because there isn’t any other way for those people. Yellow pages? Who reads them? Journal advertisement? Banners? People got used to them and can ad-block automatically. Our brains are trained to ignore them, it’s just not effective any more.

Some companies say they can provide a much better ad experience for the users by spying their lives closer than their lovers. I would object that approach…

There are many (free) systems for local business, but none of them seem to cut it. Maybe because people are always trying to get money in return (weird world, isn’t it?) and end up putting paid ads bigger, colourful and in the front page, and let the real local business somewhere between marriages and obituary.

I have no idea how a system would get rid of spam once and for all and it’s not my cup of tea to think about it, but I’m sure there are many people that could tackle this problem, they just need a bit of money (from the government) and time. It’s not a matter of filtering emails, it’s a matter of removing the need to send them in the first place!

If governments are really worried about spam, let them be creative and help freedom, privacy and good relationships rather than the totalitarianism we’re seeing around the world.

A new world is rising, new machines are taking life much faster than most governments would like and the digital hand-cuffs are showing that none of them understand a bit of what’s going on. All blinds, living in their caves watching the shadows on the wall. Whoever cry wolf is right for no one knows what wolf really is and where is it. Technology is like children, the more oppressed they are, the more you loose control over them.

Einstein didn’t go to the US because he liked the land of freedom, he moved because he hoped (in vain) that they would know how to use wisely the technology he knew how to build. He knew that others would be able to build it and it was just a matter of time before any bomb was actually available. Holding it back was not the answer and he knew it.

I just hope people figure it out sooner rather than later, or 1984 will seem like a pretty boring fairy tale for our children…

Apparently, users are so dumb that they don’t even know what opt-out means, so Microsoft just wants to be really sure anyway…

Dear Windows Live User,

We are contacting you regarding your communication preference settings for Windows Live and MSN.

Currently, your settings do not allow Microsoft to send you promotional information or survey invitations about Windows Live and MSN. We would like to communicate important product updates to you, so if you would like to change your settings, please visit your account profile here to change your preferences.

Sincerely,
The Windows Live Team

Note: You can also change your Account settings by going to your browser and typing in: http://account.live.com. After logging-in to your account, look for ‘Additional options’ and click ‘Marketing preferences’. Then uncheck the top preference box and click ‘Save’.

Microsoft respects your privacy. To learn more, please read our online Privacy Statement.

Microsoft Corporation

Thanks for the fun, Rodrigo

DRM sucks, we all know, but I couldn’t have expressed in a better way than that!

Of course, I’m not an artist (and he’s one of the best), but still, clear as vacuum.

“Most of us wish we could give more, now we can. Everyclick is a really simple way to raise money for free, just by doing something you already do” said Polly Gowers CEO, co- founder and winner of the WEBA Ethical Entrepreneur of the year 2007. “As we see it, every search that is not raising money for charity is a search wasted.”

 Everyclick.com works just like any other search engine, but allows the users to choose the charity they would like to benefit from their searching. The revenue generated for charities comes from companies that advertise on the site. There is no sign up fee or hidden charge to the user or the charity, it’s free giving.

 Charities of all sizes are benefiting from this new fundraising service; they range from Cancer Research to small village schools. If 10% of the UK online population used Everyclick.com for their searches, an additional £172,000 would be raised for charity every day.

How to raise more money for Camfed using Everyclick:

• search the web using personalised Camfed search page: http://www.everyclick.com/camfed
• compare and shop using this link (shop online at Tesco, Dell, Amazon, M&S, BBC, and more – half the revenues will go to Camfed)
• collect sponsorship
• donate, give and reclaim
• eVouchers
• tell your friends
• add our Camfed Everyclick webpage as your homepage
• Configure your email signature to spread the word

About Everyclick Charity Challenge

The Everyclick Charity Challenge enables us to raise more money and have the chance to win a poster campaign on 1500 Clear Channel Outdoor sites that will be viewed an estimated 192 million times.

The challenge runs from 15th October 2008 to 1 March 2009 during which time we will have a range of innovative ways to raise money online.

Lot is being said about cloud computing recently that culminated on the heated rant from Richard Stallman. As always, I agree in parts, but sometimes RMS can be a bit too reactionary.

I do completely agree that giving away your personal data to companies like Google, Yahoo!, Amazon and Microsoft is not desirable. That this puts too much power on their hands, that they own your data, your history. Problematic ownership grants such as in Second Life proved to be even worse. So, what’s the catch?

Cloud computing

In essence, cloud computing is doing to the internet what IBM did to big companies in the 60’s. They had a big server and hundreds of dumb terminals from where you could access the system, your data and history. Today’s dumb terminals are a bit smarter, though, but the cost of keeping consistent data and history on your own home desktop, work desktop, laptop, mobile phone, pda and whatever else you have that access or deals with your data is still unbearable.

Not only that, but it’s virtually impossible to build a collection of systems that works with any kind of data on any type of device running any operating system and window manager etc etc. Lots of big companies (such as Microsoft and Apple) are trying hard at it for decades and they are failing miserably, over and over.

Agreeing over standards (HTTP, XML, RDF) is one way to go but the intrinsic details of every single application and this Intellectual Property paranoia the world is facing nowadays makes it impossible for two different companies to agree with standards. That, of course, when they don’t start their own standards just for the sake of having one of their own.

On the other hand, on-line software companies like Yahoo! (at its time) and Google (today) grew bigger than those two giants doing on the internet exactly what they couldn’t do on the desktop. Cloud computing is just a beautiful name for “we keep your data safe and sound and pay us with the right to do whatever we want with it“.

Desktop era

Where I don’t agree with RMS, though, is that we should keep our desktops. No matter where you store your data, on Amazon’s S3 or on your desktop, if you don’t protect your data, it’s not yours anymore.

It’s not just easy to break into any machine or network with the required amount of work (NASA and NSA constantly owned is the ultimate proof of that), but if everyone stores data on their desktops it’ll also be worthwhile. Today, if you break into my desktop you’ll see a bunch of pictures of my family and my (already public and GPL) programs.

What’s the point? No point, my desktop today is just a cache of the internet, a fast access to data that is already public on the internet. My personal banking information is on my bank’s website (which I don’t trust, by the way) but that’s life. My emails are on my mail servers, my personal history and chats on my blog, my friends list on social websites, etc. If I was to store all that information on my desktop, that’d be a huge security breach.

Not only is easier to safeguard a bunch of servers than millions of desktops, but it’s spread out. If you break into GMail to get someone’s emails you won’t (hopefully) get his banking details. If you click on scam and loose your financial data, you won’t loose your family pictures, emails from your dead granny, and so on.

Safe cloud computing

What we need to assure is that companies like Google and Amazon not only promise to “not use your data for their own profit”, we need to make sure they will never be able to, even when they change the EULA. How? Simple, use encryption!

We need to make sure that the email service uses GPG (or any encryption/authentication scheme) not only for sending and receiving, but also for storing your emails. Google says it spoils their fantastic advertising engine and you’ll get random ads instead of targeted ads for your email. Thing is, I’m not looking for answers or searching the internet, I’m just talking to my mum! I don’t need to buy “mums on eBay at unbeatable prices“!

On-line storage is easier to work around, just be sure to encrypt the files before you send it back and forth. A simple program could do that using the API they provide to access your data.

Social networks is far more complicated, though. But the way I see is simple: it’s public data, live with it. My blog and web-pages have lots of information about me. If you google my name you’ll see lots of other sites with lots of informations about me, and I can’t do absolutely anything about it. What would be good, though, is to be able to own this data, but it’s not storing on my desktop that will help anyway.

Would be cool, though, if one could download their own information in RDF format and import it to a local tool on their desktops or to another social network. Different websites could do it automatically (some do) to exchange information about you, but again we fall into the value of data ownership, and when money is at stake, people (and companies) can get very naughty.

Conclusion

As I see, cloud computing is inevitable, either because it’s really cool or because those companies will make you believe it’s really cool. It’s not a matter of liking or not, it’s a matter of accepting it, but enforcing your rules to your own data.

I will never, ever, buy anything that has DRM, Root-kits, feedback-systems, usability limitation or anything that takes away my own freedom to own what I’ve paid for, or created myself. A song, a picture of my son, my friends list, this post or my ideas, are all owned by me, no matter where I store them.

Storing copies of my data on another server should not bestow them ownership, but they do reserve the rights to do something with it (like targeted ads). They own a copy of your data. But if you regain control of it, by encrypting everything, you take this last right away from them.

So, if you’re really concerned that Google will take profit of your start-up idea described on your email, don’t use GMail for those things, or at least encrypt what’s sensitive. If you’re concerned that Yahoo! will use your personal photos for advertising, don’t store there sensitive images.

But please, don’t go crazy, blaming a new technology, just because it’ll take away the ownership of your own data. The internet already did that, a looong time ago.

If you’re still paranoid… keep your computer safe, unplug it from the mains. Don’t take pictures, don’t blog, store all that information on your brain. Don’t talk to other people, they might use your ideas for their own benefit, or for the greater good. It’s a choice you have to make, and be consistent with it… Good luck!

A while ago I’ve posted about how crap Microsoft’s “Open” OOXML is (GPL violations and redundancy among other things).

Now the battle seems to have heated up: IBM threatened to step out ISO (via slashdot) if they don’t roll back the OOXML approval.

Well, they’re big and still a bit powerful. MS is big, but falling apart. Probably other companies would join them, especially those against.

Microsoft is not only failing technically with Vista and their web platform but also financially. They probably spent too much with .NET, Vista and stupid patents. At least the European Patent Office went on strike (I’m really amazed) because they are: “granting as many patents as possible to gain financially”. I wonder is the US patent office ever considered that…

Nevertheless, it’s always good when a big company poses against something bad and restrictive (for the future), although the reasons are seldom for the greater good. Let’s hope for the best.

After Yahoo! rejecting MS offer and all the fuzz about Yahoo! takeover now Yahoo! itself is breaking apart…

No wonder the shareholders are mad, Yahoo! has been falling to pieces since Google got into scene and now with the $31 / share offer when it was barely holding it self above $20 the shareholders saw all the return for their investment happening in a very short time, what might be the last chance they have to see any money back at all.

So here’s a bit of futurology:

David Filo moves to Hawaii, shareholders sue Jerry Yang and he’ll end up very poor on his own Caribbean island, Yahoo! is bought by Microsoft by half the price (after the lawsuits there will be few left) and the shareholders will be very happy to, at least, get some money back.

All FreeBSD / Apache / PHP will be converted to Windows 2003 Server / .NET / C# and Yahoo! services will be even worse than they used to be, Microsoft will take the users and force them to start using Google services (no one likes to eat crap anyway) and Google will be the last hope of the Internet.

Fortunately Google is by far more efficient than Microsoft and Yahoo! together (it’s not that hard anyway) and it’ll be piece of cake to take them both down while still holding their hats with the other hand. I just hope Google doesn’t try to dominate the world as Microsoft is attempting for decades, they probably know by now that it’s like reaching the speed of light, the bigger you are the more energy you need to increase speed.

Microsoft and Yahoo! will still exists for a loooong time and Google will have a bit of competition for a while, at least until the “next-Google(tm)” shows up and put all three in the sack “with a wave of her hand(tm)” and the cycle will start all over again.

Let’s hope for the best, whatever that is…

Yeah, and it’s not the board game, it’s for real!

Seems like Google is finally to join the dark side and Darth Sidious is going to be replaced by Vader:

Obi-Wan: You were the chosen one. It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them. You were to bring balance to the force, not leave it in darkness.
Anakin Skywalker: I HATE YOU!
Obi-Wan: You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you.

Pity, but highly predictable…

It has now passed almost 170 years since the first programmer did the first code in the first analytical machine and yet we are so lame I can barely be proud of what I do, professionally of course.

Coders are now among the richest people in the world, programs sell more than bananas nowadays and the investment in technology is considered now one of the basic blocks of modern society and still we can’t build a piece of software that lasts for more than 5 years without being completely scraped.

The open source community is probably the biggest anarchist movement in history with all the good and bad things we all knew about anarchy and for the surprise of capitalists it’s working far better than big technology companies (check IBM’s OSS support and Vista’s problems in the general news).

Of the hundreds of open source softwares that emerge only a very small fraction have success but yet they manage to stay for longer in a stable status and growing smoother than paid software.

Companies are so worried about money that even tech companies can’t write proper code. Scientific institutes are so worried about doing the perfect way every time that they re-write everything everytime and still need to re-write from scratch next time again. Money and ego are the villains in our industry and unfortunately most of us are affected by at least one of them.

Case studies

Banks, for instance, focus on what works instead of what will last. The result is a complete mess (our beloved ball of mud) that eventually have to be re-written in the future and replaced by another ball of mud with bits of the legacy balls (just in case something breaks). If customers could see the code that run a bank before opening an account they will never open it, in ANY bank.

Internet companies have the same problem but a few more, it must look good and it must be new. It doesn’t matter if the code is good, or if someone really need that feature, but the more features it have the better. (Not) Maintaining that in the future is a completely different problem.

Big companies only follow standards when it’s not needed, like writing core libraries in PHP because that’s the company’s default language or sticking crappy systems together with tape just because they’re the standard libraries used worldwide.

Scientific institutes are not free of problems too. Money is much less a problem but the ego is so big that it can be even worse. Everyone wants to re-write everything their own way and no one disagrees and just shake their heads and wait years to have another non-working beta system to maintain alongside with all other systems made by people that left the institute decades ago but there is still one person using (and normally afraid of moving as it’s not his code as well).

So, why?!

Simple: ego, fear, pride and prejudice.

Not many programmers really care about money, as much as they care about their own ego. The money problems in private companies is institutional and not personal. Our problem is personal.

Most CTOs, CIOs etc know about all problems of taking the actions they take but they’re often afraid of taking radical decisions (even when it’s for the better) or their ego demand them to change something that is working well just because it was someone else who did it.

Most programmers will have a huge pride of their systems and consequently an even bigger prejudice on the others’. Reason can’t work where pride and prejudice rules, nothing good can come out from an environment as bad as that.

Now take those four problems and you know why are we SO lame!

This is also the same reason why open source software is not as lame as closed source. Programmers still have ego and pride but code is pure logic. When your code is exposed you won’t be proud of a bug and if someone points you to one in your code you rather fix it than yell at him/her. In this case your ego and pride will not save your job but make you loose credibility in the community and your project will be put aside and other will arise, so if you don’t cooperate, you die.

Open source promotes dialogues, refining code and algorithms, finding bugs and fixing them the best way possible. It might be (arguably) slower than big companies but still the overall local quality is much better.

What to do?

It’s not just a matter of solving one or other problem, as the environment is already filled with rubbish up to the top, it’s a matter of acting different, from scratch. (my ego is working now)

If you know something is wrong, report it. If someone says it’s impossible to do, demand proof. If someone takes actions based on ego, fear, pride or prejudice, open your mouth and speak loud.

You might loose your job but I’d rather loose my job than work on such a lame place and today, unfortunately, it quite difficult to find somewhere not lame.

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