The alcohol non sequitur

More than three thousand people die yearly in Australia due to alcohol. That's just more than eight a day. Add to this the immeasurable social consequences of alcohol and you'd think the purveyors and producers of this harmful substance would be the pariahs of society. Not so. The booze barons are respected, very rich members of society even though their product causes several times the mortality and morbidity of illegal drugs. Compared to the booze barons, Carl Williams and his mates were very much in the junior league. The statistics may be some years old, but does anyone contend that the figures have significantly changed? The number of deaths dropped from 3000+ to maybe 1000, or 500, or 35?

Everybody knows alcohol causes death and destruction, even the booze barons. What can we logically deduce from the facts that they know this but still continue to manufacture and sell it? Obviously, they couldn't care less. The same goes for instances helping them to sell their slow poison by accepting alcohol advertisements - they know alcohol kills, too. I suppose one can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, fill up the four car garage without some suckers dying. As long as it pays.

One would expect the drinking public to have seen through this - they are enriching people who couldn't care less about them dying of the product they buy off these people. Of course, they shouldn't die quickly. They should drink heavily for twenty or thirty years before finally croaking. One would expect these booze hounds to say, 'no more, this is stupid'. I mean, everybody knows. But they don't say that. Do they deserve to die? After all, everybody knows. But still they keep on drinking.

And the attitude to drinking. If someone says he likes his beer he says it in such a way as if expecting credit for it. Instead he should be ashamed of himself for enriching people who kill 3000 a year in Australia. The whole thing doesn't make sense.

Now the booze hounds and booze barons will most likely say, yes, but cars and tobacco kill people, too. Road deaths are about half of what alcohol kills in Australia. And about 30% of those deaths are caused by alcohol. And in modern life the car is an absolute necessity. Alcohol is not. Tobacco kills several times the number alcohol kills. But does that make alcohol killing people right?

And all this takes place with the blessing of whichever government is in power. Shouldn't they be ashamed of themselves for allowing this? They are supposed to look after the people, even those too stupid to know any better.

Money, stupidity, utter disregard for the consequences of what they produce, sell, advertise, drink and allow, and what have we? What we have is that this will continue, even though it makes no sense at all.

Till next time.

A True Atheist Won't Condemn Religion

Very often we come across hate-driven, spiteful things said about religion, like the utterances of Richard Dawkins.

Now the true atheist, the one who really believes we come from who knows where for no reason at all with only one certainty - we all face total oblivion, won't say anything about religion, or much anything about anything at all. Why? Because he would realise that if things really are as he believes, nothing much matters. Why spend his time and energy attacking something he believes doesn't exist? Why doesn't Richard Dawkins write a few books about Santa Claus? The Santa Claus Delusion.

Now all atheists, and the rest of us, too, know that some people derive comfort from religion. Why deny them this comfort? Especially if things are as bleak as atheists make them out to be. Are atheists such hate filled people and so downright nasty? I mean, if there is no God and these people are comforted by believing in a non existent God, what does it matter? Why hate something which doesn't exist? It doesn't make sense. Richard Dawkins, are you such a nasty piece of work you want to deny these people this comfort? I mean, in the end, according to atheists, nothing matters. And you are an atheist, right?

So, you see, spitting hate, venom and spite at religion makes no sense for the true atheist. If they are really atheists they would just shrug their shoulders when confronted by religion and go on doing whatever atheists do. Whatever they, or any of us do does't matter much, according to them. Because in the end...

Till next time.

Linux vs Windows

This subject comes up every now and again. Nearly all the Linux detractors have no experience with Linux. On the other hand, nearly all Linux users, people who prefer Linux, once used Windows. That says something, doesn't it?

So, which is the best operating system? When the chips are down and the demands are high, undoubtedly Linux. How can I say that, you ask. There is a category of computers called super computers. They can often just be a great many computers working in parallel. Be that as it may, these computers can really compute, and fast, too. You can find the Top 500 of these computers on a site called, Top 500. The ten present top ones are on the front page. They've got names like Kraken, Jaguar and Roadrunner and are often used for research. Wikipedia also has a Top 500 entry. Now guess which operating system the top ten ones run? All Linux. In fact,supercomputers use Linux nearly exclusively. See the wikipedia supercomputer entry. Windows is like a flea on an elephant on the graph. Surely, this must mean something.

And, oh yes, most of the servers on the Internet run Linux. Netcraft just told me Google's servers run Linux. I know Yahoo runs FreeBSD - the cousin of Linux, just like the Mac OS. Why, I wonder?

I can see the Windows monkeys foaming around the mouth. They go on about software applications and hardware support and ease of use. Clearly, they are talking through their necks. I find both KDE and Gnome better desktop environments and easier to use than the Windows at work. Yes, you can choose one or more of several desktop environments for Linux. In Windows you are stuck with the default one. Updates on my Debian Lenny system are far preferable to what happens on this Windows machine. The Synaptic package manager is a dream. The ease of use thing is about ten years out of date. How Windows presents their file system hierarchy in Windows Explorer is just dreadful. It's so simple and elegant in the Linux file managers - again, you have a wide choice.

I'm sure there are a few applications one can't find for Linux, but they will be specialized, expensive packages. Most likely more than 80% of people now using Windows will be able to get along very well with what Linux has. I can download about 23,000 free packages from Synaptic. If Debian doesn't have it, I can compile it from free source code, like I did the other day for DropBox. DropBox is now on this Windows computer and my Linux machine at home, sharing files between the two as if the files were on the same machine.

I found installing Debian faster and easier than installing Windows. It picked up all my hardware and loaded the drivers into the kernel. Debian is not the first Linux distribution I've used. I've been on Linux for many years.

And then the killer: Linux is free. Windows costs big bucks. Add Office and an anti virus and a few other applications and the bucks stack up. Open Office for Linux is also free. And it reads Windows Office format files.

However, most people are still with Windows. That won't change until people in general become smarter. Don't hold your breath.

For anyone curious about Linux, give Mepis a go. You can download the image (.iso file), burn it to a CD as an image (not a picture image) and run it from the disk without upsetting anything on your computer. It will run slowly from the disk as your DVD/CD is much slower than your hard drive. If you have broadband it will immediately pick that up and you'll be on the Net.

Till next time.

Climate change, the final word

Beyond this there is nothing to say about climate change. This is how it is: either climate change is completely untrue or it is true in part or totally. There are no other possibilities.

If climate change is totally untrue, we don't have to do a thing. There is no problem; at least not a climate change one.

If climate change is true, in part or in full, whatever we may may do to alleviate its consequences may not be effective at all, or it may be effective to any degree, from marginally to totally alleviating the consequences of climate change. I'm talking of consequences still in the future.

If nothing we can do will have any effect, the worst is going to happen, whatever the worst will be.

This leaves us with the final scenario; climate change is true, either in part or in total, and we can do someting about it.

From the standpoint of taking action on climate change there are really only two scenarios:

• we might as well do nothing beacuse there is no climate change or whatever we do won't help


• we'd better do something because climate change is real and we can do something about it

What will the costs of doing nothing or going all out be?

If we do nothing and there is no climate change the cost will be nothing.

If we do nothing in the case that whatever we do won't help, doing nothing will cost nothing - whatever is going to happen will happen with us watching helplessly on.

If we do nothing in the case that we could have alleviated the consequencs of climate change the cost will be those consequences, whatever they may be: an ice age for north western Europe, vastly expanded deserts, we don't know in detail.

The cost of doing something will be the same in all cases: economic upheavel, work moving from some industries like coal to other industries like nuclear, wind, solar and other forms of power generation. Some countries and areas in countries will become less wealthy while others will become more wealthy. Coal and oil exporters will be hardest hit. Everything that uses energy will become more energy efficient.

Apart from the obvious benefit of alleviating the effects of climate change in the case that we can do it, there will be other benefits. These other benefits will be the same in all scenarios: decreased air pollution, a decreased reliance on oil and a saving on the balance of payments for oil importing countries, new industries in some cases with in others existing industries becoming much stronger and less oil money in the hands of Islamic terrorist sympathisers - there are a great many of them.

The problem most politicians face is how they can be perceived as doing something about climate change while in reality they are doing nothing about it. They will no doubt use their old allies - empty words, promises and obfuscation. Political campaigns cost money. To stay in politics they need financial backing. People are making money from polluting industries. And these people have much influence on who gets elected and who doesn't. Politicians can't upset these people. Expect very little from countries in which polluting industries are big, like the USA and Australia. Most of the bosses and workers in these industries care only about their money and jobs. And they have a lot of clout.

Just look around you on the road, what do you see? Every driver of a big, fuel hungry vehicle couldn't care less about global warming. And there are many of them. Some of the big four wheel drives have three or four small kids in them. Do their fathers or mothers driving these vehicles care what type of world these kids will inherit? Obviously not. And all the big vehicle manufacturers still make these thirsty vehicles. According the the Australian Government's Green Vehicle Guide the Nissan Y61 Patrol 4.8L 6cyl, Auto 5 speed drinks 16.4 litres of petrol per 100Km mixed driving (it goes up to 23.2L/100Km of city driving) and coughs up 393g CO2 per Km. I'm sure Nissan is very proud of themselves.

As we don't know which scenario is true, the clever thing is to prepare for the worst and do everything we can that may possibly help. The possible costs of doing nothing are just too great. But this is not going to happen. There are too many who just couldn't care less.

Till next time.

How to prevent another Enron

Why do publicly traded companies lie about their financial positions? In most cases, to boost their stock price. Why would they want to do that? Because key employees hold many shares, that's why.

Most big, publicly traded companies have share schemes whereby employees are rewarded with shares for performance or can buy shares at discount rates. The rationale is that employees with a stake in the company will be more diligent than those just working for a pay check. This is most likely true. But the other side of the coin is that it will provide an incentive to manipulate share prices by lying about the company's financial position or prospects. Enron was the classical case. When the truth eventually comes out, like in the case of Enron, the consequences may be devastating, like in the case of Enron. It depends on how much money is involved and on the stakeholders affected.

So how can we prevent another Enron? Simple. Make it illegal for anybody working for a company to own shares in that company. What about incentives then? Financial performance bonuses have been around for a long time. Reward staff with extra holidays, a toaster, a new car, an expensive watch. The list is endless. But don't dangle the temptation to inflate the share price by lies in front of them.

Till next time.

All the rice in China

You may have heard the story about the man who it is said invented the game of chequers. According to the story he was from China. It may also have happened in India and the game may have been chess. In that case the story is known as The King's Chess Board. The emperor or king liked the game so much he decided to reward the inventor.

"What would you like," the emperor asked the man, beaming benignly.
"Your highness," the man humbly said, "let's take a chequer board, put one grain of rice on the first square, two on the second square, four on the next square and so on. We double the grains for every subsequent square. Then your grace can give me all the rice on the board."
"Is that all?" asked the amazed emperor. "No man, choose something of value."
"Your highness," the man said, politely looking at the emperor and measuring his words. "That is not a little bit of rice."

The emperor summoned his accountants and they worked on the problem for two full days. When all the calculations were done they found that there was not enough rice in all of China to give to the man.

When I first heard this story I wondered if this was true. Well, let's see.

Here is a very small Groovy script which does all the heavy lifting for us:

BigInteger rice = 0
0.upto(63){x ->
  rice += 2**x
 }
rice

We start with the first square with one grain of rice on it, that is two to the power of zero. We increment the power with one for every square, in effect doubling the grains of rice on each subsequent square. We sum the grains as we go.  Yes, hard to believe, but those few lines above do all that.

Next we apply what we got. I used values from the Internet. The low specific gravity is for rough rice. Most likely the rice in China so long ago was not husked.

This is what we did, again in Groovy:

 println "There are ${rice} grains of rice on the board"
 println "At 200 grains of rice to a teaspoon that would give ${rice/200} teaspoonfuls of rice"
 println "To get to liters we multiply by 5 and divide by 1000 : ${rice/200*5/1000}"
 println "To get to kilograms we multiply by the specific gravity of rice, about 0.58 : ${rice/200*5/1000*0.58}Kg"
 println "Metric tons of rice on the board: ${rice/200*5/1000*0.58/1000} Metric Tons"
 println "Total global annual rice production, about 12 million tons"
 println "Ratio of rice on the board to global annual rice production: ${rice/200*5/1000*0.58/1000/12000000}"

And here is the print out:

There are 18446744073709551614 grains of rice on the board
At 200 grains of rice to a teaspoon that would give 92233720368547758.07 teaspoonfuls of rice
To get to liters we multiply by 5 and divide by 1000 : 461168601842738.79035
To get to kilograms we multiply by the specific gravity of rice, about 0.58 : 267477789068788.4984030Kg
Metric tons of rice on the board: 267477789068.788498403 Metric Tons
Total global annual rice production, about 12 million tons
Ratio of rice on the board to global annual rice production: 22289.8157557324

Absolutely amazing, isn't it? There was 22,290 times as much rice on the board as the global annual rice production!

The story doesn't say if the man got his rice, but I doubt it.

Till next time.

How to prevent a financial crisis and much more

A financial crisis can have more than one cause. We are mainly concerned with the current financial crisis which has fraud as its main cause - near worthless assets were created and sold off as as assets of value. As fraud is a crime, it should be prevented by the powers that be.

The first thing that should be done is that whoever sells assets should clearly and unambiguously state what underlies the asset and gives it value. In the case of these mortgages it means they should not only have stated that real estate underlies the mortgage, but that the mortgage is in the name of an unemployed, semi-literate drunk.

The next thing is that the chain of accountability should be clearly spelled out. The same goes for the consequences of contravening the law. That means the exact person in a company should know he will go to jail for so long if so much worth of dodgy assets are sold. It should be like a decision made by computer logic once the relevant facts have been fed in. No lawyer should be able to have any influence on the eventual outcome. If any company structures itself in such a way as to obfuscate the chain of accountability, it should be a crime and the CEO should go to jail.

Any company should be legally required to immediately make public knowledge any financial adversity. Again, the consequences for not doing so and the chain of accountability should be clearly spelled out. These derivatives were heading south long before anyone spoke out.

No income should be acknowledged before the money is in the bank. This requirement alone would have prevented the whole Enron saga. They claimed income which at best was years in the future and in the end did not eventuate.

Any projected income should have a solid basis and a high probability of eventuating. Enron made wild income projections that didn't have a hope in hell of coming true. Whoever issues these projections should know, as he is talking or tapping away at his keyboard, that it's either the projected income coming in right on time, or jail.

The powers that be should not make laws or issue proclamations compelling anyone to enter into unwise business transactions, like the Community Reinvestment Act in the USA. This is a prime example of an act which shouldn't exist. It is based on political correctness. Political correctness has no business in business or anywhere where reason is required.

Of course, a financial crisis can be fueled by other causes. When the share market is going up many people make money on shares. This is seen and everybody jumps in. Shares become grossly overvalued and everybody wants to convert paper gains to real gains. They sell. Needless to say, shares plummet. Ditech Networks which once (about 2000) briefly sold for $101 now (18 Nov 2009) sells for $1.40 a share. Again, needless to say, many lose out big time.

It should not be possible to make money out of creative accounting or clever manipulations of numbers. Sadly, in todays financial system it is. Many are going to make big money out of trading carbon offsets, or whatever they are called in different countries, without these carbon offsets making any difference to greenhouse gas production at all.

Yes, these things can be prevented or at least often prevented. Unfortunately Kris Kristofferson was right: "The things that they complain about are thing they could be changing, but no-one seems to care."

Next time won't have anything to do with finance.

Till next time.