Last Thoughts on 9/11

11. September, 2011

Who knows the truth? No one.

There seems to be a lot of convincing evidence that the “official truth” about the Twin Tower attack is not correct. Well, I know for sure that the “official truth” is not 100% correct for these reasons:

  1. The people who planned the attack haven’t stepped forward and explained them in detail to us so far. Anyone else is just an outside observer at best, so how are they supposed to know “the truth”?
  2. Anyone planning a big project knows that there is always a gap between the goals and the result. So even if there wasn’t a huge pressure on the people writing the official report, the official report has to be incomplete or wrong in some respect. The pressure just made it worse. Which means the report isn’t as correct as it could have been. And even if it was, that still wouldn’t be the truth.
  3. There is a part in your brain that filters anything “unimportant” out before the information can reach your consciousness (see “The Invisible Gorilla” for an example). That means for you, this information never existed in the first place. This and other factors make eyewitnesses so unreliable. The same is true for the victims of the attack and the people who wrote the report.

So we have two sides, the US government and “the terrorists” (whoever that might be). We suspect that the government is lying but we ignore the fact that huge bodies a) sometimes make huge mistakes, b) there is always political agenda (like Bush wanting Bin Laden dead for any reason, so why waste more effort in a deeper investigation?) and c) the people writing the official report didn’t have all the facts (for many reasons).

For me, 9/11 just gave a bunch of people a perfect excuse to create more terrorists, for example by killing more than 100’000 civilians (irritating thought: Do you believe this number after reading the above?).

Remember: If you want to make a situation worse, you send an army – they are trained to conquer and destroy. To contain a situation, you send the police – they are trained to contain and deescalate.

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Disabled Sharing

7. September, 2011

Until the German law has decided how to handle the illegal data transfer to sites like Facebook and Co., I’ve disabled the sharing options in my blog.

For those interested: German laws say that companies must not collect data about someone unless said data is necessary for a business transaction. Since you have no business with Facebook (Facebook’s business is selling your data to advertising companies), give your data (like that you visited my blog and liked it) to Facebook is illegal.

It would even be illegal if I asked for you permission before showing a like / +1 button since you have no way of knowing what happens with your data.

While this might seem excessive, it’s a law that has its roots from German’s past where the Nazi time where such data could kill you (for example if they suspected you to help Jews, listen to foreign radio, etc). Uncontrolled data collection gives someone uncontrolled power and there really is no telling how such data could be abused by a smart criminal.

People already lose jobs or don’t get them in the first place depending on the Facebook profile. Just imagine what could happen if someone who hates you, say your ex, gets a list of all your friends and starts to tell them the “truth” about you. Or if some overeager official who suspects you to be a criminal asks Facebook for all your data which includes a list of most web sites that you visited in the past 90 days.

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No Software Can Be Better Than Its Worst Error Message

7. September, 2011

Kudos for this simple but oh so true proverb go to Stephan Herrmann.

Thank you.

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Final Java Questions

3. September, 2011

Recently, I read a blog post which talked how “stupid” today’s developers are. As an example, “the interviewed candidates claims that they are very good at core java and saying that we can’t add/remove elements to an ArrayList which is declared as final.” (Are Frameworks Making Developers Dumb?)

Funny, right? But it got me thinking.

How important is it really that someone knows this? With over 60K points on stackoverflow, I’m one of the most knowledgeable software developers in the world but there was a moment, when my brain stumbled over the question. I rarely use final in my code. So how much value does this information have? How often do I need this every day? Once per week? Month? Year? How much damage can the wrong answer cause?

While I agree that sound knowledge helps a lot, I see team mates struggle much less. They don’t know as much as I do but there is a demotivating effect here: If you know too much, every simple question triggers a flood of thoughts: What can go wrong? Didn’t we encounter this already? What’s the best solution?

Sometimes, there are two “best” solutions and missing any further input, I can get stuck in a deadlock. Which way to go?

Or the solution to a problem triggers a new problem which in turn triggers a third. Suddenly, I’m caught in a maelstrom of dread which overwhelms me: Every possible way out just causes more trouble.

So for me, knowledge isn’t everything. Some people are “just” decent developers but that should not stop you to hire them. Here are some other, valuable factors:

  • How easily do they give up?
  • How well do they play as a team? That doesn’t mean everyone has to be a “team player” (whatever that might be). But strengths and weaknesses of each individual should compensate each other. One guys likes to talk a lot, let him handle customers. The other guy likes to work alone, give him the hard tasks that need a lot of time and concentration.
Most of all, make sure that every member of the team understands that a weak spot doesn’t make someone less valuable. It just makes them less valuable for certain tasks. If you can distribute the tasks just right, the team will be much stronger than one made up from the best developers in the world.

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SCO vs Linux: Game Over

31. August, 2011

Finally: 10th Circuit Affirms in All Respects – Novell, Not SCO, Owns the Copyrights, etc., by pj

Of course, this is SCO … I might be a little surprised if they didn’t try to appeal to the US Supreme Court 😉

SCO or how to waste millions of dollars for naught.

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Talk To The Enemy

18. July, 2011

“Not all power comes from a willingness to kill … Sometimes, it comes from a willingness to die.” – Orson Scott Card, Robota.

To use less drastic words: Power comes from a willingness to change the world. There are many ways to do it. Some are more violent than others. Some are easier to mend than others. Some are easier to master, some more efficient. Some won’t leave everyone a victim.

An interesting approach is “T2E – Talk To The Enemy“, a German site where people from all kinds of religions discuss various topics around a central theme: What’s necessary to live together in peace?

It covers basic questions: Why religions? Is the Islam misogynistic? How do you live religion? Religion and politics. Stereotypes. Isn’t Christianity out-dated? Islamic Missionaries – Should Europe convert to the Islam? Religious Terror. Minorities. Why do you hound us? Are Germans too tolerant? The secular society – who still believes in God? Muslims and Christians – Is co-existence possible?

What makes the site interesting is that its made by non-professionals, so the answers are still rough and you feel how they struggle with these complex questions. As we all do. You won’t find the slick, PR polished answers there which some types of people want you to submit to. It’s quite possible that it takes another 1’000 years or even more before we can ease these pains – if ever. But that doesn’t make these answers less real or less important. Quite the contrary.

Laws will not protect us against terrorism. Laws can only punish in retrospect – or they become the very terror they seek to prevent.

Understanding can’t protect you against a bullet. But it’s much harder to shoot someone with flowers in their hair. And your life will be much more enjoyable.

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Math Education is Like Ape Dressage

16. July, 2011

Matt Brenner says:

Today, math education is more like ape dressage: Students learn processes but they don’t understand them.

Why and what do about it? See his book.

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Israel Added to List Of Countries That Tend To ‘Promote, Produce, or Protect’ Terrorists

4. July, 2011

A couple of days ago, “U.S. Designates Israel as Country That Tends ‘To Promote, Produce, or Protect’ Terrorists; Also Calls Israel Anti-Terror Partner”

Well … keeping more than two million people in the world’s largest prison was bound to “pay off” one day.

Makes me wonder: When will the US add itself to this list? Illegal prisons like Guantanamo are a perfect excuse to turn some frustrated soul into a terrorist.

I wish the fools in government would have let Obama close this revolting institution. But as usual, they hope the mess will explode in someone else’s face.

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Good Food From the Roof

3. July, 2011

UrbanFarmers is a small company that has developed a simple way to grow food on the roof: Take a standard cargo container, put some plants in a greenhouse on top of it and fishes in huge water tank inside the container. Meet the UrbanFarmers BOX.

The water is pumped to the plants for irrigation. It contains the wastes from the fishes which fertilize the plants. The plants clean the water which goes back into the fish tank.

Unlike other irrigation systems, this one has only a small loss of water. It needs no artificial fertilizers. There is no need for pesticides or fungicides because of the greenhouse. The fishes don’t need antibiotics.

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How Hollywood Loses Money

29. June, 2011

Apparently, making big feature films is a risky business. Let’s take unsuccessful movies like “Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix.”

“Wait a minute,” I hear you say, “Potter is a loss?”

Sure. It grossed only $1B so far. What a sad failure! Now, the corporate entity responsible for this blunder is $167M in the reds. Which means that no one in the “net-participation” list will see any money.

Cory Doctorow posted more details in his blog.

Apparently, this is just an example of creative money moving. All participants in the game are parts of Warner Bros. For example, the movie needs advertisement. Luckily, they have a subsidiary for that. But, oh bother, they are expensive. So what, we only want the best. So money goes round and round and round until everyone is spin dizzy.

Think again when the content industry blames losses on “piracy.”

But wait … isn’t that … yes … it kinda is piracy! Just not by the people at which Hollywood is pointing.

What was the old saying? “When you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you.” So true.

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