Fifth amendment? What stinkin fifth amendment?

Should the government search your brain?
The state may soon be able to force you to reveal your password. That’s a huge threat to the Fifth Amendment
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/17/should_the_government_search_your_brain/singleton/

The fact that I am writing this blog entry discussing the idiotic notion that your password that encrypts/protects your data could even possibly be considered as personal data subject to protection by the fifth amendment shows how far along our police state has gone. It is inconceivable to me that a country that ratified the fifth amendment is even capable of asking for this information, let alone pressing once rebuffed. Our Constitution is now nothing more than an old rag suitable for nothing more than wiping up food stains and being discarded in the trash.

Really, _anyone_ who cares anything about the origins of our country and honoring them (hey Tea Party! where is your anger now?) MUST stand up and fight against this sort of thing. Of course, since we are in a police state, that means being run off to Guantanamo as some sort of terrorist (which specific type, they just fill that in whenever convenient), so I guess there just aren’t that many true patriots any more.

I can’t think of any way where this gets better without getting a whole lot worse. I just saw an article (didn’t read it, why get upset about something I can’t influence?) that 90% of the money in our GOP primaries (of course, since Obama is the man, there isn’t any need to spend any money on the Democratic primary) is from 100 people. Think about that and despair! The oligarchy is in firm control of the police state and the only way we can be happy is to carefully conform to what the government wants us to do. Just hope that some wacko like Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum doesn’t get elected and makes our porn collection illegal (or indeed, having sex with your spouse without intention of procreating illegal). When the best you can possibly look forward to is to minimize your misery, you know you are in deep doo doo.

Biofuels are hard!

After my initial theoretical calculations (see http://sol-biotech.com/wordpress/2011/12/28/biofuel-calculations/) several people greeted my 25 apples/sqft assumption with a lot of skepticism. I also developed a lack of faith in the number when I compared my bushels/acre based on 25/sqft with the actual harvest reported and found that my estimates would require more apples had fallen to the ground than were harvested. Today I finally made the time to count the apples on the ground and the result is quite disappointing. While it is possible some of the apples have been eaten (there were several that looked gnawed on), I doubt that this would amount to a huge difference. In the past I had been looking at the trees at the edge of the orchard and estimating based on what I saw there, but I believe that the trees at the edges are subject to a lot more wind than those in the center and just eyeballing things that turns out to be the case. While there might be a few trees that have the desired 25/sqft, according to my measurements the average at closer to the center of the orchard is a bit more than one per square foot (1.2 according to my measurements with a range that went from zero (I measured 6 adjacent sqft at a time randomly selected under the trees) to a bit over three). The only up-side is it seems that around 40% of the land is covered with trees as opposed to the 25% I initially estimated.

Additional consideration and research indicates that my capital start-up costs are a bit high, I initially estimated the custom harvester at $400K, but I have since become convinced that $100K is much more reasonable by leveraging against the nut harvesting paradigm. I have also convinced myself that it is practical to greatly reduce the expense of treating the ‘waste’ water (indeed, I think it is practical to increase revenue by producing biodiesel with the yeast remains), so I would now reduce that expense by 3/4 (but decided to go ahead and eliminate it for these calculations). However, even if we assume that we can come up with some magical way to greatly reduce the energy cost to extract the ethanol from the yeast/water (there does seem to be a lot of potential, but nothing appears to be at the commercial point yet and I am well aware of the often challenging hurdles that need to be overcome to commercialize a prototype) I don’t think there is any practical business opportunity here, even if the apples were free (see bottom for how likely that is). So now are the new, adjusted numbers for the calculated 3,000 acres that are reported to be locally as apple orchards:

Fermenting vessels: $60K (two now instead of 20)
Storage vessels: $15K (half of a container the size of the fermenting tank)
Land: $0 (the requirements are now so low I could do it on my own property)
Harvester: $100K
Total: $175K

Annual operating costs (this doesn’t change a bit):
Harvesting: $10K
Fermenting: $130K
Labor: $40K
Operations: $40K
Total: $220K

Revenue (@$2/gallon for the 88K gallons produced): $176K

Since the revenue is less than the operating costs, clearly this project is infeasible. Sure, it might be possible to reduce some costs by being draconian, but it won’t likely save more than a few percent, thus not changing the overall picture. While the capital costs have dropped hugely it is irrelevant if the operating costs can’t be less than the revenue.

I also found out this morning by coincidentally bumping into a local friend that the orchards that I thought were locally owned were recently sold to an overseas combine and the likelihood of getting permission without obtaining some sort of liability insurance is likely zero and it is more likely the new owners would insist on some sort of compensation on top of the cost of the liability insurance, which makes this idea even deader.

So, after my initial enthusiasm when preparing the initial post (where I initially expected to calculate then that it wasn’t worth it), it is a bit depressing to once again have my hopes dashed. I so want alternatives to work, but the economics are just not there until conventional prices go up at least 10 fold (after accounting for inflation; check out the inflation adjusted price of gasoline to see what a challenge that is!) and scale are just not there without some significant paradigm shifts (which I think are conceivable, but not likely in the near term).

Not sure how I feel about this also…

‘Badges’ Earned Online Pose Challenge to Traditional College Diplomas
http://chronicle.com/article/Badges-Earned-Online-Pose/130241/

I think the idea behind this concept is quite valid, provide a way for effort to be recognized (for instance, I have spent huge number of hours helping people on a programming forum but I doubt (other than that almost certainly leading to being chosen as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional) it helps me in any job search (I do tend to mention it in my cover letters, though, maybe there is a payoff)). Also, I have studied a huge number of subject quite intently and if I were able to take on-line courses and pass tests that gave me accreditable recognition I might be motivated to complete some areas of study (usually when I find out I have been an idiot for making some invalid assumption I tend to drop the subject, one of the drawbacks about knowing a little about a lot of subjects). I did get certified in one area (actually two, but the second (Scrum Product Owner) was an extension of my employment (and was pretty much a joke anyway)), I became a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), but my personal experience was that effort wasn’t worth a damn (meaning I couldn’t get any jobs in the infosec world despite having it).

However, I see it subject to huge potential for abuse. Unless there was some sort of honest accreditation body that would evaluate what it took to get the badge (and ensured that those requirements didn’t get diluted over time!) and further act as some sort of clearinghouse so someone trying to evaluate the worth of a badge had a one-stop shop, I figure they are totally worthless. Unless you have some widely accepted ‘badge’ (like the CISSP, though by itself it wasn’t worth a damn to me) that the community can agree on (and further, have some sort of way validating it was earned), what is to keep me from charging $5 for whatever badge you think is cool looking that you can add to your resume? I like this quote (there are several nice statements in the article, I highly recommend it):

A world of badges would also create extra work for both job applicants trying to organize and present their badges and to employers trying to judge their actual worth. All badges could seem more flash than substance, like the “flair” worn by the waitress in the movie Office Space.

Bottom line, I am conflicted. The idea has so much potential that I want to champion it, but it is so easy to build a totally meaningless system that I feel without some strong guiding hand it will leap directly into uselessness.

I got mixed feelings on this

The Very Real Danger of Genetically Modified Foods
New research shows that when we eat we’re consuming more than just vitamins and protein. Our bodies are absorbing information, or microRNA.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/the-very-real-danger-of-genetically-modified-foods/251051/

When I first saw the title I figured I would take a look to see what fruitcake arguments the anti-frankenfood people were currently promoting. However the article was surprisingly intelligent and I wound up at the end thinking they might have something. It is very well known in the world of business liability (which means, naturally, that the vast majority of people have no clue) that lawyers routinely advise against investigating dangers associated with any products on the market and if they become ‘accidentally’ aware of any dangers the lawyers strongly advocate against any sort of preemptive fix. Why this absurd (on the face of it) situation? Because, here in the great old US of A, lawyers get fat and happy by suing big companies in class action suits for defective products. If, during one of these trials, it comes out that the company in question had any actual knowledge about the defect the chances that a jury will award obscene punitive damages skyrockets (see the tobacco industry for case-in-point). Thus, by having plausible deniability that the company even knew that their product was in any way, shape or form defective, they can (attempt) to convince the jury of 12 clueless morons that they really didn’t know and thus shouldn’t be subject to any punitive damages. For a case in point, check out the old Ford Pinto situation.

So what does this long-winded blather have to do with genetically modified (GM, or franken-) food? I am quite certain, as if I sat in the board room listening to the lawyer’s arguments, that these companies (Monsanto in this example) were advised to do no more than the absolute minimum of safety testing. I suggest that the limit of their testing was some human taste-testers to verify that the genetic alteration didn’t cause any changes (or certainly any negative changes (see Favr Savr)). Now, I am quite certain that if the gene introduced was lethal those tester’s heirs would be collecting (hopefully robust) life insurance policies and those particular changes would not be made public, but the issue is really about more subtle effects. As the article suggests it is approaching the possibility that computer analysis could be used to do some analysis on potential interaction, but having been a working member of the National Center for Biotechnology Information I can state with a certain amount of authority that the level of information that people _think_ is available on the human genome is woefully out of touch with the reality and even suggesting that approach (at this time, anyway; after a few million people have had every bit of their DNA sequenced (something, btw, that NO ONE has had happen yet (don’t let anyone tell you different!)) and recorded in searchable databases) is quite nonsensical in reality. Large scale toxicity studies, in addition to being quite expensive, are also very time consuming (typically taking 2-3 years (I know this because I spent 6 months preparing compounds to test on animals, doanchano)) and when you realize also that testing on rats and mice don’t always reveal toxicity on humans (for instance, you can feed rats, mice, monkeys, anything you want peanuts for centuries and that won’t tell you a damn thing about peanut allergies in humans) it becomes even more difficult to justify economically.

Having said all that I do think that some trails should be done. Granted testing on humans is always challenging (not the least because of ethical considerations), but if they understand what is going on and have freely given consent (my wife, for instance, is instrumental in testing vaccines on healthy human volunteers (who sometimes get paid very handsomely for their risk)) then it would seem to me that having a few thousand people testing (i.e., eating) the product is a way to demonstrate to the jury that you have done your due diligence. Of course, just like the case with the global warming fanatics, there is unlikely to be any agreement with the anti-GM people on what would constitute adequate testing, but I would feel, off hand, that if 1K people have eaten the product for at least a year and there is no statistically significant differences (it would have to be a double-blind study, thus another 1K people to act as controls) in their outcome (the year wait, btw, shouldn’t be any issue as it probably takes several years to ramp up production to the point where it is commercially viable), then the product should be safe. Note, though, that there would have to be a range of ages in the group, which creates the additional ethical consideration of do parents have the rights to make decisions for their children (I would expect most courts to say ‘yes’, but this is the US after all).

So, long and short of it, I think Monsanto and its ilk are deliberately turning a blind eye toward potential liability on purpose (at the advice of their lawyers and because of our totally fucked up legal system) which means they are probably doing the absolute minimum testing simply to validate that the changes haven’t made the product taste like crap. I think that our legal system should be in the situation of defining what would be acceptable due diligence and any company adhering to the recommendations would get a pass from any lawsuits (unless, of course, they engaged in fraud, etc.). Too bad that is impossible in our litigious society.

More bla police state bla…

Homeland Security monitors journalists
http://rt.com/usa/news/homeland-security-journalists-monitoring-321/

Since the article is so compelling I am going to quote it in its entirety…

Freedom of speech might allow journalists to get away with a lot in America, but the Department of Homeland Security is on the ready to make sure that the government is keeping dibs on who is saying what.

Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has the written permission to retain data on users of social media and online networking platforms [read as anything on the Internet, anywhere, ed.].

Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition of personal identifiable information, or PII, such data could consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.” Previously established guidelines within the administration say that data could only be collected under authorization set forth by written code, but the new provisions in the NOC’s write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the agency.

Also included in the roster of those subjected to the spying are government officials, domestic or not, who make public statements, private sector employees that do the same and “persons known to have been involved in major crimes of Homeland Security interest,” which to itself opens up the possibilities even wider.

The department says that they will only scour publically-made info available while retaining data, but it doesn’t help but raise suspicion as to why the government is going out of their way to spend time, money and resources on watching over those that helped bring news to the masses.

The development out of the DHS comes at the same time that U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady denied pleas from supporters of WikiLeaks who had tried to prevent account information pertaining to their Twitter accounts from being provided to federal prosecutors. Jacob Applebaum and others advocates of Julian Assange’s whistleblower site were fighting to keep the government from subpoenaing information on their personal accounts that were collected from Twitter.

Last month the Boston Police Department and the Suffolk Massachusetts District Attorney subpoenaed Twitter over details pertaining to recent tweets involving the Occupy Boston protests.

The website Fast Company reports that the intel collected by the Department of Homeland Security under the NOC Monitoring Initiative has been happening since as early as 2010 and the data is being shared with both private sector businesses and international third parties.

I wonder if my little blog has made it to the DHS watch list? Surely, since I have said some unflattering things about our government, I should qualify, but then again my readership is so low perhaps I don’t show up (of course there was that inexplicable blip on Jan 1st, maybe it was their servers crawling my site from multiple locations?). I don’t think it will be too much longer before they start to round up as ‘terrorists’ (a most meaningless word getting even more meaningless every day) people who say unflattering things about the government or individuals therein (break bad on the govt. and you are helping terrorist, doanchano). Hopefully they won’t start with the bloggers who have the fewest hits so I should have some notice that it is time to get out of Dodge before the men-in-black show up to escort me to Guantanamo.

Why this is the “Great Recession” rather than “Depression 2.0”

Why do Republicans hate poor, hungry people?
Pennsylvania’s GOP governor announces plans to restrict eligibility for the federal food stamp program
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/11/why_do_republicans_hate_poor_hungry_people/singleton/

If it weren’t for the remaining shreds of our social safety net we would certainly be in Depression 2.0 rather than ‘only’ in the Great Recession. Sure, it is a burden on society to provide for so many when the economy is cratering, but this cratering movement develops lots of momentum and if it weren’t for this ‘burden’ our economy would be even tinier and our recovery wouldn’t have even begun to begin yet. For intelligent people (which seemingly disqualifies the GOP and the Tea Party entirely) enlightened self interest will cause them to champion the social safety net because it is very easy for people who understand economics to see that letting these people continue their drastic drop into abject poverty drags down EVERYONE including the obscenely wealthy (though, naturally, they couldn’t care less as long as their relative amounts of obscene wealth remain). Conversely, when the economy is in a huge upward spiral and everyone is making more money the wealthy make more money as well (same caveat in reverse, though the very wealthy actually are negatively incentivized toward such things as it might risk their relative standing since some ordinary puke like me might wind up passing them). Too bad our country is populated by morons who are so anti-science and anti-learning that they would rather elect pathological liars than pull their heads out of their asses to actually understand the policies being debated.

So, we should all just spend “50% to 100% more”?

Can ‘The All American Store’ Reverse Our Nation’s Walmartization?
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/01/06/can-the-all-american-store-reverse-our-nations-walmartization/

People complain bitterly about Wallyworld coming to town and make all sorts of promises that they will steadfastly ignore the store and support their fellows. That is, until they see the prices. Then, all the sudden everyone is shopping at Wally and the local stores go right out of business just as predicted. Why don’t people want to spend “50% to 100% more” to keep local stores in business? I think the question answers itself, why the hell would anyone want to spend “50% to 100% more”? Unless you have a product that can compete on price/quality very few people are going to shop (particularly in the midst of the Great Recession!) where they have to make do with less (fewer goods for higher dollars). Clearly the people who patronize this store (which, btw, had sales that were “Up 15%”) can afford to spend half again to twice for the exact same product, but ordinary people can’t do that. Sure, lots of people (very rich people (actually, not that many as a percentage of the population)) spend silly-assed amounts of money on stupid things (how many people really need a 100 ft yacht they never use?), but that is a small segment of the population, the rest of us have to stretch our dollars as far as they can go. If I can get an (otherwise indistinguishable) T-shirt for $3 at Wallyworld and it is going to cost me $9 if I get it ‘made in America’, who, exactly, am I helping by pissing away my hard earned dollars to get that largely meaningless label? If, somehow, that T-shirt was somehow better for having been made in the US (3 times better? how could that be?) then I might make the decision to pay extra, but for commodities, the cheapest is key, always.

Bla bla bla police state bla bla bla

Prosecutors Gone Wild: How Many Wrongful Convictions Will the Public Stand for?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/conrad-black/supreme-court-michael-morton_b_1189021.html

While waiting for my lovely wife so we can enjoy our 14th wedding anniversary I picked an article to read and it triggered such a response I felt it warranted a post. As some of you reader(s) might already know, I have strong feelings about equal application of law, silly things like the Constitution and the notion of fair play in our government. As such I tend to drone on and on and on (and on again) about the police state our country has embraced (starting before 9/11, but certainly blasting forward since then). Prosecutorial misconduct is something most people can’t even pronounce, let along spell or even comprehend, yet punishing it is key to a free society. This is why…

Next to the electoral accountability of government officials, the two greatest pillars of democratic civilization are the rule of law and a free press. By giving the press, in the New York Times and Sullivan, an almost absolute immunity against defamation actions, and the prosecution service an almost absolute immunity from responsibility for its own lawlessness, the Supreme Court has detonated high explosives under the foundations of American civilization.

Even we were able to elect an honest politician as President who would represent the people instead of the moneyed special interests, he/she would be blocked at every turn by our bought-and-paid-for Congress and Judiciary. We are well and truly doomed, but I get tired of repeating the same old apocalyptic themes over and over again.

A new blog you might find interesting…

I was contacted by a high school friend I haven’t heard from in a long time (hey Greg!) and he mentioned he had been reading a blog I might be interested in (I suggested he might be interested in mine in a bit of shameless promotion). It is called “Do the Math — Using physics and estimation to assess energy, growth, options—by Tom Murphy”. I have only read a couple of his posts so far, but I really like what I have read and plan on reading all the rest. The guy has been posting for less than a year it looks like and has less than 30 posts (all original content, I think, so way ahead of me though I have pumped out a lot more posts) and has had an amazing 700K visits to his site (I, on the other hand, am probably well under 1K total visits (according to Google Analytics I have had 244 visits with 157 of them begin unique (with my peak of 53 visitors on Jan 1 (the average is much closer to 2-3)))). If I had that many visitors I might try some advertising to see if I could bring in enough green to justify doing it full-time. However, since the primary purpose of this blog is to help my glacial day pass a wee bit faster so I can get home from work without going insane, I guess I should be happy that I have any readers at all.

Anyway, the guy’s blog looks quite interesting and he is amusing (to me), so I encourage all my reader(s) to check him out. So, with no further ado…

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/