Weblog

Monday August 11, 2008

First piece of the new USSR falls into place.

For just over 15 years now, the group of nations that sprouted up after the downfall of the USSR and the Soviet empire have been enjoying a period of self determination and relative peace. But recently, things have been changing in Central Europe and its relations with Russia.

In the last 24 hours, we've started reading about a conflict in Georgia, supposedly between rebels in South Ossetia and the Georgian army. Being next to Russia, Russia has stepped in to "help". But who are they helping - Georgia or themselves? It's not clear.

Oil

Russia supplies much of the former Eastern Bloc with oil via the Druzhba pipeline. This includes countries which have become quite good friends with the USA, such as the Czech Republic.

Last month on the xth of July, 2008, the USA signed a treaty with the Czech Republic for the contruction of a radar facility to direct missiles planned for deployment in Poland - ostensibly to protect against rogue states in the middle east from launching attacks at the USA. Something that Russia wasn't particularly fond of.

In the days that followed, oil supplies from Russia dropped, without any official word being give as to why. Whilst the Russians cited technical problems, the proximity of the two events doesn't fool anyone. As if this wasn't enough, towards the end of July, oil supplies dropped further, to 50% of its pre-treaty volume.

So what's that got to do with the price of fish, you might say?

Now the question to ponder, is the conflict in Georgia a result of the fallout of diplomatic relations between the USA and Russia surrounding its radar facility in Poland and the Czech Republic? Will Georgia be just the first brick to fall? With the USA caught up in the middle east mess that it made, there's little it can do to help countries such as Georgia. But hold that thought: if the USA or NATO/EU forces were to enter Georgia, what would they do and who would they be shooting at? Would it be the first time that it was East vs West? How will Russia respond if NATO/EU request that they provide peace keeping troops for South Ossetia and that the Russians withdraw?

While the USA has ferried back 2000 Georgian troops from Iraq, much to the outrage of Russia, claiming that the USA was not helping, it would seem that perhaps this might be the limit to which the USA can do something. The conflicts it has embroiled itself in throughout the Middle East are taxing its military muscle and budget, something that Russia is probably well aware of. So if you were Russia, looking at a collection of rogue states around your border that had abandoned you to become friendly with your once enemy and that once enemy was now looking weak, wouldn't you look to capitalise on the situation?

Whether it is by coincidence or not, on August the 20th, Czech TV plans to present footage of the 1968 Russian invasion. Looking at what is happening in Georgia today, it feels like we're in a time loop...

References:

• Georgia's plea to the world
• The West cannot afford to be indifferent to Georgia's fate
• Massive attack on Georgian city
• Russia pushes into Georgia

Sunday August 10, 2008

Playing God with the Weather

One of the official Chinese news outlets for English, Xinhua, writes about how Beijing disperses rain to dry Olympic night. Sounds clever, doesn't it? But is this more a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face?

Rain, in Beijing, as in many other cities, performs two roles:

• provides water to everything on the ground and
• "washes" the air.

So, by making the opening ceremony rain free, they've all but guaranteed the rest of the event to have lower air quality. How do I know this?

I've lived in Beijing during this time of year and the air on morning/day after a rain event is always much nicer than it was the day before.

So why is it so humid in Beijing? The prevailing wind direction from most weather patterns that affect the city is onshore (wind blows from the sea to the land.) During summer this brings lots of hot moist air from out over the ocean, over the land until it meets the mountains that border Beijing, trapping it. About once every 2 weeks they get a westerly wind pattern and all that crap gets blown out to see - clear skies usually last less than 48 hours.

I'm sure the only people who are surprised about the condition of the air in Beijing are the IOC folks that haven't spent any real time in the city and lapped up whatever the Chinese told them. The Chinese people won't be, anyone who has been to Beijing won't be, athletes maybe (because they've been duped by the IOC.)

So the buildup of bad air continues and one is left to wonder if the Chinese authorities will insist on playing God (and make things continually worse) for the entire event or will let nature look after itself.

Update

As has been reported today, rain over the weekend has washed away some of the smog. Maybe the organisers of the opening ceremony should offer an apology to the cyclists for denying them some cleaner air.

Saturday August 09, 2008

Evil Google vs Evil Microsoft I suppose a lot of people are starting to ponder and comment on this so let me just join in all those that are...

Google often espouses the motto Do No Harm, giving an impression that it cares about what it does and the world around us. It is, however, a corporate entity, out to make money, just like Microsoft.

In IT circles, Microsoft is the company everyone loves to hate and while in many places you won't never be fired for buying Microsoft, it's just as likely in that same place for people to bitch about Microsoft. Why do we hate Microsoft? Software quality aside, they have employed and gotten away with business practices that many other companies wish they could. They force us to use their products and make it hard for competitors to develop software that can compete on an equal footing with it. Thus they're evil and we all hate them.

Google, on the other hand, doesn't sell software per-se, it sells advertising. In order to make the sale of that advertising relevant, they need to have some clues as to what we might be interested in. No good giving us ads for surfboards if we're in Nevada browsing the web for car engine parts. The more they watch what we do, the more they can learn about us and ideally make the advertising better, right? While this is all done in a somewhat subversive manner at present, through the use of cookies, web bugs, etc, how many people would say "yes" to someone looking over their shoulder while they surfed the 'net, just so that they could hand them better adverts?

Not content with just providing search capabilities, Google has reached out and gotten involved with mapping. Google earth is a great product, letting you zoom around the globe like a bird. Free of advertising, right? Not now. In the beginning there was very little location data. Now when I fire it up, by default it is showing me where motels are, places of interest, etc - advertising. Ugh. Get it off my map! But they haven't stopped here with their mapping - they've taken to the streets in cars and gone about taking photographs everywhere they can. In doing this, they, as a company, have quite clearly crossed the "evilness" line: they've ignored "no tresspassing" and "private" signs and ventured onto private property, without permission.

While some might want to blame individual drivers for going where they shouldn't, ultimately someone higher up the food chain has made a call about where to go and where not to go. From comments being made on the WWW, their stance appears to be "photograph as much as we can get away with." As a business, the way in which Google approaches what they do is starting to sound a lot like Microsoft and rather than play nice with everyone, they're out to exploit whatever and whomever they can.

So while we've all been focussing on how evil Microsoft is and looking to Google (perhaps) to save us from Microsoft, I'm starting to wonder if this is really a good idea. If I was faced with having a choice of free software from Google that came with ads or paying Microsoft for it (without ads), I think I'd have to give the finger to Google and pay Microsoft for it. Whilst Microsoft may have nefarious business practices in order to get their goods to be #1, they don't drive up and down streets invading the privacy of me and everyone else on the planet. The evil of Microsoft stops at the shopfront (or the DVD/CD.) The evil of Google knows no boundaries.

So rather than having one large, evil, mega IT corporation to hate, maybe we now have two of them...