For many issues, there are those who will start the discussion with, “Why is America better than any other country/culture/organization to manage this?” When we went to Iraq, it was argued that the rest of the world didn’t support us, so we should not do it. When we discuss global warming, it is argued that the world has decided we are the worst carbon producers so we should abide by their decision that we decrease our output. When we discuss the morality of our law, it is argued that international law is more sophisticated and nuanced, so we should take our cues from the international “consensus”. 

Needless to say, I will almost never agree with the idea that our culture or way of life is morally equivalent to any other. This is, by far, the most productive, most freedom-loving, and most altruistic nation this planet has ever seen. I am a firm and proud believer in the idea of American Exceptionalism.

This is some grand stage-setting to make a case in point. One of the many issues that has been driven by the mantra of, “Why should America be in charge?” is the management of the Internet naming authority

The IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, is the organization responsible for managing top-level domains. Top-level domains are the last parts of URLs like .com, .org, .edu and the country-based domains like .uk for the United Kingdom, .nz for New Zealand, etc. The IANA is operated on behalf of the US Department of Commerce. How this came about is a winding story, but it boils down to the fact that the United States build the first parts of the Internet and we’ve managed the naming schemes ever since.

Now that the Internet is clearly necessary for governments and businesses to function internationally, those who believe that the United States would abuse it’s authority are demanding that the IANA turn control of the top-level domains over to an international body like the UN. Has there been any major mismanagement at the IANA? Has there been any legitimate controversy that would suggest they are abusing their privilege? No and no. This is simply a case of arguing that the United States has no more rights than any other country to run this service and, in fact, the US is less equal than others (this is where moral equivalency morphs into anti-Americanism. A very common occurrence.).

Ariel Rabkin wrote this great article for The Weekly Standard describing the situation and the legitimate fears and dangers of letting anyone else control the top-level domains. He makes the case that letting any other group decide how to manage those domains would invite censorship and persecution by a group that likely wouldn’t have to answer to any particular population. See how Islamic countries feel about Israel in the UN. Do you think they wouldn’t argue for shunning them technologically? See how the UN feels about whether to recognize Taiwan (who currently has it’s own top-level domain separate from China). Do you think a permanent Security Council member wouldn’t argue for downgrading Taiwan’s Internet status?

Mr. Rabkin wraps up with a great point:

It is natural for other countries to resent the privileged role of the United States in Internet governance and to demand a greater measure of control. But if we believe in free speech, we ought to keep control of the Internet away from foreign governments that value it far less than we do.

Which brings us back to the beginning. How many foreign governments value free speech like we do? How many foreign governments value property rights like we do? How many foreign countries are built on the idea of limiting government like we are?

You see, America is exceptional.

As some of you know, I use my copious free time (ha!) to work for Smart Box Design. We make casual games for mobile devices. We’ve primarily been focused on Palm and Windows Mobile devices and smart phones. That is, until now. As of January 2, we now have our first iPhone application available on the Apple AppStore called WordPop! If you have iTunes installed, this link will take you to the WordPop! page on the store.

We’re very excited about deploying our games on a much richer device with a much wider audience. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, please try it out. We think you’ll love it!

I know I am. We had FiOS Internet and TV installed this afternoon. I’m truly amazed at how fast the Internet speed is and how clean the interface is for the TV services. This is a thoroughly impressive upgrade. My previous Internet speeds were roughly 1500kbps downlaod and about 740kbps upload. Tonight, I got this result:

Wow.

On Tuesday, August 19, David and two friends he had never met in person before began the odyssey known as The Endless Setlist.

First, you should know the players. David is our son. That’s the easy one. Ian is a friend David met playing games online and, it just so happens, also lives in the Portland area. He hitched a ride with his mom and was ready to roll. Lucas is another friend David met playing games online. Lucas, however, took a longer ride. He arranged for a bus ticket and a hotel so he could visit from Calgary, Alberta. Even better, he showed up on our doorstep after walking the 4.5 miles from the hotel. That’s a dedicated gamer!

David, Lucas, and Ian pound through The Endless Setlist

The game in question is “Rock Band”. The point of the game is to use guitar, microphone, and drum kit controllers to play familiar songs. The guitar controller is simpler than the real thing, but that doesn’t make it simple at all. It’s quite hard to keep up. The drum kit is very similar to the real thing. While there is a microphone, nobody wanted that part, so they just played three pieces: David on drums, Ian on Bass, and Lucas on Guitar.

Now, the normal style of this game is to play setlists. Some are one song in length, others are three or four or five. There are a few setlists with ten or more. However, when you have done well enough, you have a chance to play The Endless Setlist. This is 58 songs long and uses every song sold with the game. While you can pause the game, you cannot save your place to come back later. It’s meant to be played in marathon fashion.

With a few breaks between the tougher songs, these guys finished it in a little over five hours. Wow.

Congratulations, dudes! That was impressive!

There are a few more pictures here.

I am thankful for scientists with integrity that are willing to state the truth. I worry about those who bend and dissemble when the truth becomes inconvenient. This article from one Dr. David Evans sounds like the result of the integrity we should be applauding in the scientific community. No doubt, he will be called names and cast out. However, I doubt anyone will challenge him on his science. He was a believer in anthropogenic global warming, but he has since changed his mind due to the lack of evidence.

My title here refers to one of the basic reasons why AGW should not be believed:

The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

If the science that predicts catastrophe also predicts this hot spot, what should it do when the hot spot cannot be found? Is it sane to act like the science is still correct? Maybe a reevaluation is in order?

He also reiterates my favorite evidence that it’s time to step back and consider the consequences of any further actions to abate CO2: The fact that the warming trend that scared everyone to death actually stopped seven years ago.

The satellites that measure the world’s temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the “urban heat island” effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.

What would you call those who disguise or ignore the truth and tell the public something contrary to it? Should we choose to turn our economy and lifestyle upside-down to accommodate the predictions of these prophets without evidence? Is it politically incorrect to at least request a clean analysis of climate change based on currently known data and not just predictions from the last decade or two?

Why does anyone listen to these people anymore?

Dr. Evans comes to the very same conclusion in regards to his home country of Australia that I do in regards to the United States:

The onus should be on those who want to change things to provide evidence for why the changes are necessary. The Australian public is eventually going to have to be told the evidence anyway, so it might as well be told before wrecking the economy.

Still think AGW is real? Prove it.

For those who may not know me well enough, my childhood was heavily influenced by Lego. I loved Lego sets. I craved more pieces and more variety. I was constantly building spaceships, cities, and anything else that came to mind. For a little while, I was taking pictures of them so I could rebuild them later. I never did, though, because my imagination was always urging me on. Lego were possibly the most creative outlet I had until I discovered software engineering.

So, when I stumbled across this article at Gizmodo the other day, it really brought me back. I used to pore over the catalogs imagining how cool it would be to have every Lego Space set at once or what I could build with the large Technic sets they were marketing to pre-teen boys like myself.

The video attached to this story shows a quick tour through the Lego vault where they have one of almost every Lego set ever manufactured in off-the-shelf condition. That’s 4,720 different Lego sets. At 12, I would have been in heaven. Now, it just makes me choke up. This quote sums it up:

These weren’t just simple boxes full of bricks. These were tickets to ride a time portal to emotions and simpler days long forgotten.

Hmm, now where is my big, denim drawstring Lego bag?

I couldn’t pass up posting a picture of this guy. I saw him earlier in the conference, but he just walked by the next table over so I took a quick picture. Some people grow out of their nerdier tendencies. Obviously this guy hasn’t:

Yes, that’s right, he has a custom-made wristband for his iPhone

I think he’s set back geek chic twenty years.

Sorry for the late post today. I had to check out and get my luggage to the convention center. That took a little more time and I was a little winded when I get here.

That said, the morning went well. There was a “bash” for all the attendees last night that included beer and wine. The breakfast tables were quite empty this morning. I don’t know how much of that was attendees leaving overnight and how many were just hung over.

So, I’m done with both of the sessions I wanted to attend today. The first was just more detail about a particular programming area for iPhone, but the second was a “Tips & Tricks” session that included a mishmash of various techniques and ideas for building nice interfaces. It was fairly packed, so I’m guessing most of the iPhone developers have not gone home yet.

The rest of the day will consist of me wandering for the best power/network connection that includes a comfortable chair (they aren’t always in the same place). Other folks here will be leaving and others will loiter in the labs for as long as they are allowed to get advice and input on their killer app.

This also seems to be the time of the week when I start to get philosophical. I tend to think about what the grand message for the week was, what do I take away from the event, and what I will tell my boss on Monday. Of course, these events always have implications on our future plans. Sometimes it’s small (we can’t use the new stuff until it’s more widespread) or very big (that fundamental technology we depend on is going away or changing radically). This is somewhere in between. There are changes afoot, but nothing we need to worry about today.

I’ll check back in later as my philosophical side kicks in. I almost certainly won’t be updating from the SFO airport, though, as wi-fi is not free there.

Three more down. This afternoon I did two more iPhone sessions and learned quite a bit. I had to skip the really buzz-worthy last session of the day to go learn about something unglamorous, but more valuable to Inspiration at the moment. As I waited for the first afternoon session, though, I took some snapshots of the line forming to get in:

This line is right next to one of the lounge areas they have here. I actually spotted a couple of guys doing something other than checking email or reading code:

After this session and before the next (in the same room), I had a flashback kind of moment. First, you have to understand that they play music in each of the rooms between sessions. By the end of the week, you begin to hear the same songs over again and start to get tired of them. They’re usually modern pop and alternative songs that won’t offend or be too annoying. Today, though, someone dug up an old playlist. I had a flash back as I heard, in order: Video Killed the Radio Star, Kids in America, Sweet Dreams, I Melt With You, Planet Earth, and Higher Love. Wow. That made me feel young again.

Then, on the way out I got these shots of that big session emptying:

I expect tomorrow to be very laid back. Again, with the baseball metaphor, this is the time of the season when all the teams know how it’s going to end and they’re either getting ready for next year or planning for the playoffs.

I’ve seen a wide range of developers this week and they’re all over the map. For some, this was all brand new and they weren’t sure what to make of it. I’ve seen guys working on code and developing apps during the sessions. Then, I spotted one guy looking up terms on Wikipedia that any first year software developer should know. For others, this was the little bit of info they need to go take on the world. I’m excited to see what’s ready to go when the iPhone App Store goes live in a month. There’s going to be some fun stuff. I hope I’m rooting for something I worked on!

 

I’m feeling like I’m in the home stretch now. Three more sessions today and two tomorrow. I was successful in finding power during the second session this morning, but only because it more lightly attended. It was easily the least populated session I’ve seen in the big room. I think it proves a point about developers, though: We all think we write perfect code. The session was about debugging and analyzing iPhone applications. I figure most folks think they’ll never have to worry about that and, so, didn’t bother attending. I know better.

I think I have a plan for Friday as well. Getting an earlier flight turned out to not be possible. However, I did discover that, while the last sessions will be ending at 3:15, the convention center is staying open for attendees until 6:30. So, I’m planning on basically loitering here with the fast and free Internet access (and power) until it’s time to go. I’ve already scheduled an airport shuttle to pick me up. Should work well!

Time to run to the next session, though, so I’ll try to follow up with more data later.

(See, you can see it’s the home stretch because my entries are getting lazier, too!)