Lotto for the Cure

An idea:

A rich philanthropist (someone like Bill Gates) creates a massive trust fund. The fund continues to re-invest its money to maximize the size of the trust.  The purpose of the trust is to reward the person/company that discovers the cure for some disease.  A "cure" could be defined as a reasonable treatment period followed by lifelong remission for 90% of patients....or whatever would be relatively air tight on defining a real cure.

The goal of the fund would be to give a massive incentive to someone (most likely a company) for curing a disease  rather than providing treatments for diseases.  This incentive would be in addition to whatever patent rights they would get as well.  If the fund got into the hundreds of millions of $$'s, it would serve not only as an incentive to innovate, but also an incentive to be the first to market (and thus, first to claim the prize).

Why you shouldn't buy Modern Warfare 3 (MW3)

About a month ago I purchased Modern Warfare 3 (MW3) for around $60.  I'm a fan of FPS games and this one seemed like a good one.  The single player game itself was pretty good, but it was very short.  I think it maybe took 3 hours total to complete, which was much shorter than the gold standard (in my opinion) of Half Life 2.

But that was fine, because it had an online component which was really the more important part of the game for me.  This is the part that would make buying a $60 game worth it.  A good online game could be enjoyable for years (like Counter-Strike Source still is).

But as I was soon to find out,  MW3’s online component was different and fatally flawed.  The first thing I noticed when launching the online game though Steam was that there were no servers to choose from.  Instead, the game seemed to find other players and create a new game.    That was interesting, since my experience was that you played on a particular physical server that was owned by someone who managed that server.

As best I can tell, MW3 works like this:  You select to play a game (there are several variations of MW3 online games, to choose from but are similar to most FPS games).  Then Steam goes out and finds other people who are interested in playing that same game right now.   The next step seems to be that Steam determines who has the best PC and internet connection, and then hosts the game on that person’s PC. 

And that is the weird part.  Without your knowledge, you may be the host for the game.  Not a big deal, but it leads to some serious problems which Activision and Steam apparently never thought about.  First, there is an upside to this:  The game is no longer dependent on servers being around for people to play.  That means that (theoretically) 20 years from now, if enough people are interested in playing the game, they can create an ad-hoc online game.  No one needs to pay to maintain a MW3 server for 20 years.

But here’s the huge downside.  About a month after MW3 was released, software cheats for the online game became available. These cheats (such as aimbot) allowed people to dominate the game so that no one could play.  Literally, it was possible for a match to start and for one cheating player to kill everyone in the game in about 10 seconds, before anyone else had a chance to even move from their start positions. With the old server based gameplay, the server admin could identify cheaters and ban them from the server by blocking their unique game ID and/or IP address.  This meant that servers with active admins became great places to play, where cheating wasn’t tolerated.  But with the new MW3 system, there was no longer an admin.  There was effectively no one able to police the game.  Except for Steam.  Steam claims to follow up on cheating complaints (you can report a cheater by going to their Steam profile page and reporting them).  But I seriously doubt Steam will do anything to cheaters, and I’ll explain why.

As cheating has always been a problem in online gaming,  various solutions have been tried out.  Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) was a system run by Valve (the company behind Steam) that would supposedly blacklist cheaters.  If you ran a server, you could get access to this blacklist and then block VAC identified cheaters from your server.  The effect of a VAC ban was basically a death penalty: Since most servers ran VAC, you would basically be banned from ever playing again without purchasing a new copy for the game and starting over.  The problem was that Valve never seemed to blacklist anyone, and I have a theory as to why that never happened. Imagine if you were Valve.  You start banning people from gameplay, which essentially removes the functionality of software they purchased.  How long would it be before there was a class action lawsuit?  How many people could you ban before someone decided to take you to court for unjustly and unilaterally removing a service for which they had already paid you for?  And there were no refunds proposed for VAC cheaters.  That would defeat the purpose since it would allow them to purchase a new copy of the game and begin cheating again until they got caught again.

So to my knowledge, VAC never banned anyone.  It appeared to be an empty threat.  So what happened was that dealing with cheaters fell back to individual server admins.

That brings us back to MW3, which has no admins. A couple of nights ago I went to play MW3, and the first game had a blatant cheater. I quit and formed/joined a second game.  Another (different) cheater.  Joined to a third game.  Another (and yes, different) cheater.  

I quit and joined a Counter-Strike server.  No cheaters.

The cheating problem has suddenly reached a critical level for MW3 and Steam/Activision are apparently unable or unwilling to do anything about it.  The online component is almost completely unplayable. 

So my advice: Don’t bother.

Losing The Meth War

Last week, the Mexican army seized 15 TONS  (13 million doses - $4 billion worth) of pure meth just outside of Guadalajara.   I think it's safe to say that the OTC Sudafed wasn't really the problem, was it?

Well, that was fast

As I predicted in my earlier post (although it might have already been true at the time of my post), the private sector already has an ALPR app available for Android and iPhone

Get ready to be stalked.

More on ALPR

Two stories that came out in the last week which provide additional information as to how ALPR is currently used.  This should be seen as the starting point for this technology.  Naturally the data collection points and data history will only grow over time:

• GPS data is captured along with the license plate information and stored for long periods of time.  At least several months.  This story shows that government officials are able to enter a license plate and find out where that plate has been over a long stretch of time.  No warrant is needed as the information is publicly available (with the exception of the DMV information that is linked to the plate).
• This article shows that outstanding warrant information of the vehicle's owner is also tagged to licensee plates.  This allows police to get alerted with a plate, owned by someone with an outstanding warrant, is nearby.  Does this provide probable cause for a traffic stop?  Hard to say.  In the article, police are able to see the driver and confirm that they are not the person wanted for a warrant (normally this would be difficult while following a vehicle).  But interestingly, they stop the vehicle anyway for a traffic violation.

Most people don't have a problem with criminals being caught by this technology.  But mark my words, this technology is in the public domain and private companies will take advantage of this at some point.  If a police officer doesn't need a warrant to collect this public information, what's to stop Google/Microsoft/political parties?  And while these public organizations don't have access to DMV records (at least, not easily), they do have access to property records.  What's to stop them from driving through residential neighborhoods to collect plate information along with home address information?  With a database of address/property owners, they would be able to make an educated guess as to who 60% of the plates belong to.  They'll also be able to map out who knows who.

Just like Facebook, except you won't have the option not to join.

ALPR - The all seeing eye of Big Brother

On November 8th, the US Supreme Court is set to hear a case which will determine whether or not police need a warrant to install a GPS tracking device on a vehicle.  The case will certainly be getting a lot more attention in the next few months due to its ability to change how the government views the 4th amendment.

But behind the scenes, technology is making GPS tracking of vehicles obsolete.  Automated License Plate Recognition (or ALPR or ANPR - Automated Number Plate Recognition).  It is sweeping the law enforcement world by storm.   In the United States, many police departments have outfitted patrol cars with ALPR systems, mostly funded by anti-terrorism grants.  So what does it do?  Well as the name implies, it automatically captures, records and checks license plates against a database and it can do so in huge numbers and with no intervention by police.  When the ALPR system finds a plate that is associated with a stolen vehicle or an outstanding warrant, the system alerts the officer and provides information on the vehicle and warrant.

On the surface, this seems like a great technology.  Police cars can rove the streets/parking lots and with little effort uncover any criminals who were stupid enough to drive around.  But like most technology, it will have unintended consequences.  The biggest one is that as ALPR becomes more popular, it will become easier and easier to track any particular individual's movement.   As the plate information is publicly visible on public streets, it's virtually immune from any 4th amendment challenge.  More cities are also installing ALPR systems at intersections in addition to patrol cars.  So the net effect will be that police will have the ability to determine not only where you and your car are at any given time, it will also (through the use of historical databases) allow them to see what any particular person's driving patterns are.    Effectively, this will make GPS tracking of vehicles unnecessary, at least in medium to large cities.

And as all of the technology that makes ALPR work is already in the public domain, it won't be long before the private sector makes use of it as well.  It's not hard to imagine that personal ALPR systems might be available in the future, allowing users to monitor patters of drivers though group-sourced traffic applications like Waze.

Imagine if a private company were able to capture license plate information along with travel patterns (where you live, work, drive). As of now, the government controls DMV information and most states make it very hard to get.  These private companies could offer this to you as well and as it's publicly visible information, it would be difficult to stop.  It would be a stalker's dream.

OK, I'll say it: Fukushima is much, much worse than Three Mile Island

Seems the governments of the world and the media are terrified of admitting that the Fukushima reactor meltdown is on par with Chernobyl. 

I'm here to tell you that not only is Fukushima worse than Three Mile Island, it has the very real potential to be worse than Chernobyl.  Fukushima is still an active disaster two weeks (at this point) after the initial failure.

This is so far beyond Three Mile Island, I can't believe people are still trying to compare the two.  We now have citizens leaving Japan who have seriously high radiation contamination.  That never happened in TMI.

In terms of a human disaster, Fukushima can very quickly become worse than Chernobyl.  By comparison, Chernobyl was out in the middle of nowhere.  Tokyo is only 150 miles from Fukushima.  What happens when a city of 13 million has to be evacuated...permanently?    Where do they move?  Where are they housed?  How are they fed?

New York Times Steps Closer To The Abyss

The NY Times announced they will be charging heavy users to view their web content.  Apparently once someone clicks on their 21st article, they will be presented with (3) pay-for-content digital packages.  How the Times will know when someone clicks on their 21st article is unclear.

Unless they will require all users to log in, it seems like a weak attempt to enforce their pay wall.    I can only hope I'm wrong and the Times will opt for hard-core enforcement and drive themselves into irrelevancy.

Here's a stat I'll revisit later:

The Times claims to have  "210,000 digital subscribers, and 400,000 copies circulate in print "


Here's what the Times has in store:

"...the pay wall's effect on the reach of the Murdoch papers has been direct and dire. Until the pay wall's creation last summer, the two Times papers (Times of London & Sunday Times) drew 20 million distinct online readers a month. Now, about 105,000 people visit their sites or digital products monthly, meaning the papers lost about 95 percent of their online audience . Only some 50,000 people actually have paid monthly digital subscriptions."

And for a world where digital papers are the (only) newspaper, that's a bad thing if you desire the power to sway public opinion.

And that's what the NY Times will have to chose between:  Being a powerful political agenda setter, or making money selling newspapers.  Ultimately, the real money is in swaying the public policy.  That's something the NY Times can't see because they've grown too comfortable with their unchallenged monopoly on that power.

Update on the "Paywall"

I've had a couple of posts about online news sites trying to charge for their content. From The New York Times (who still haven't done it, probably because they're trying hard not to lose their last 10 readers), to Newsday, to Newscorp's several attempts at paid content.

Well Newscorp is doubling down their bet into paid content with the release of The Daily for the iPad. While the iPad is, in my opinion, a stupid product from Apple, Newscorp and everyone else in the free world is certain it's the next iPod/iPhone, and are out buying them to ensure they will be.

Regardless, The Daily is paid content, costing $1.00 a week or $40 a year. Will it succeed? Probably not. The Wall Street Journal remains the anomaly in the paid content world, in that they are allegedly making money. If Newscorp's experience with The Times of London's 'paywall' is any indication, The Daily will be a miserable failure. The Times has seen it's web traffic drop somewhere between 60 - 90 % since erecting their paywall. Ouch. Making people not want to look at your newspaper is a good way to go out of (the news) business.

But this one might be different, if Murdock can convince all those affluent Apple fans that The Daily is the next 'must have' app. I'm guessing, even that is hopeless.

An Idiot Abroad: Perhaps this can wash that Gold Rush disaster from my memory

I just watched the first episode of an Idiot Abroad on the Science Channel. This show is basically a travel documentary of Karl Pilkington's adventures around the globe. It's very enjoyable, although the title is somewhat misleading as Karl , the supposed 'idiot' of the program, is actually just like you and me, dealing with serious culture clash in the 3rd world.

Ricky Gervais says this of the show:

This is a (more real) documentary than most others you'll ever see on television. We don't plan it, he doesn't know what's going to happen.

This is produced by (and stars)Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. If the first episode is any indication, it is worthy of your time.

Discovery Channel Disaster: Gold Rush Alaska

I just watched a couple of episodes of Discovery Channel's Gold Rush Alaska, and I can only assume the whole show is a hoax. The reasons why this show sucks are long (for one, it appears to be completely scripted and the cast doesn't seem to be actually looking for gold ) but a check of the Discovery Channel's forum shows that the consensus is that this show seriously sucks and is not the quality you would expect from TDC. In short, it's embarrassing.

Discovery is touting this as the highest rated TV show on Friday night. If that's true, I think it's because the audience is enjoying the view of The Discovery Channel going down in flames.

Peon Puplit's Favorite Websites of 2010

Sites that Firefox says I visited a lot during 2010 (in no particular order):

• TitanTV
• Instawatcher
• LiveLeak
• Drudge Report
• HandyManHowTo
• Google Realtime
• Google News
  

Government Now Says Fluoride 'Maybe Not So Good For You'

It's only a start, but the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is now saying that the current minimum recommended fluoride levels for drinking water should now be the maximum allowed. Wow. That's quite a turn around.

HHS say it's due to the increase in fluorosis, but the Peon Pulpit suspects it's because it's always been a carcinogen and the people who've been feeding it to you for years are trying to quietly back away from it ("...nothing to see here people, nothing to see").

Those anti-fluoride nuts are looking less crazy aren't they?

The US goes after the (Wiki) Leaker. But what about the Flooders?

So the US is all upset about Julian Assange and Wikileaks. They have expressed their glee that he's been arrested in the UK for charges in Sweden. Eric Holder has launched a Justice Department probe. Some have even suggested that he be charged in the US with spying.

But here's an interesting experiment. Ask people you know what they know about the leaks. They'll probably tell you they heard (at least) the following:

• The USA pressured countries to take Guantanamo prisoners
• Saudi Arabia is the primary funding source for Al Qaeda
• Egypt would be 'ok' with the US bombing Iran
• Hillary Clinton ordered her staff to spy on representatives at the UN

Once they've told you about the leaks, ask them where they learned of them. Ask them "So you read this on the Wikileaks site?" I bet that 100% of them say no. They heard it from The New York Times (and the multitude of other papers who republished them after that).

Julian Assange didn't steal the secret cables. Bradley Manning did and will likely spend the rest of his life in a military prison. Assange just published them. Just like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The LA Times, etc. And since most people learned of the cable's contents from those news sites/papers, aren't they the more damaging source? Aren't those 'sites' the ones who are really revealing these 'secret' cables to the world?

So why hasn't the US government pounded its fists on the table demanding the editors of the NY Times be arrested?

It's all a little strange.

The Peon Pulpit's Best Shows On Television (2010)

1. Best News Show - RedEye W/Greg Gutfeld (FOX)
2. Best Reality Series - The Haunted (Discovery/Animal Planet) Stretching the 'reality' series designation, but all the other reality series are clearly fake as well. This one is at least interesting.
3. Best Drama Series - Dexter (Showtime)
4. Best Documentary Series - Frontline (PBS)
   
5. Best Comedy Show - Tosh.0 (Comedy Central)
   
6. Best Political Show - The McLachlan group (TMG)
7. Best Guilty Pleasure TV - America's Funniest Home Videos [ABC/Syndication] - I love this show...guaranteed laughs for me.
8. Best Educational/Documentary Series - Top Gear [BBC] - Even if I'm not a real petrolhead, I appreciate Jeremy Clarkson's sense of humor (it's also clear that Clarkson is the real-life blueprint for Alan Partridge)
   

The Rise of Government 'Privileges"

USA Today ran a story about how some public school districts are trying to enforce year round conduct standards on their students. The current target of these conduct contracts are students involved in extracurricular activities. You can be sure that the rest will soon follow. What bothers me about public schools enforcing conduct standards (some of the prohibited conduct is not illegal, BTW) is that you have to sign one in order to participate in extracurricular activities. School administrators justify this intrusion into students private lives by the "it's a privilege, not a right" mantra. Every adult who drives has no doubt heard that driving is a privilege and not a right. The first time you hear that, it's slightly shocking, since not being able to drive in America is basically a condemnation to poverty (unless you live in Manhattan or have a chauffeur).

However, the privilege argument begins to fall apart when over zealous school administrators try to apply it to public schools which are funded by public taxes. Driving can be seen as a right because as a citizen, I don't have to do it. I could opt to not buy a car, not get a driver's license, not pay insurance, etc. However, as a minor in America, I can't opt out of school attendance. As a property owner in the US, I cannot opt not to pay my property taxes which fund the schools and their extracurricular activities. So what kind of privilege are we talking about where I have to pay for it but the government can require me to give up my constitutional rights in order to take advantage of it? Using this logic, the fire department could tell me that their pumping water on my burning home is a privilege and not a right, and If I really want that privilege, I better sign their contract saying I'll be good 24 hours a day (and they define what 'good' is) and perhaps wax their cars while I'm at it.

It won't be long before an unelected government administrator tries to convince us that corruption free government is a privilege, not a right.

What will you be willing to give up to get it?

Recession was over more than a year ago? Ignorance really is strength.

The National Bureau of Economic Research says the worst recession since WW II ended June 2009.

If that's true, then the current recession started in July 2009.

Seriously, is anyone buying this?

Remember - The Peon Pulpit Called It First

Remember back in 2008 when I made my first stock market prediction and was somewhat amazed that it failed to even come close to being accurate? At the time I suggested that perhaps the Fed was covertly purchasing stocks to prop up the market artificially:

It does seem like every time the market makes some huge drop (like 11/13/2008's -554.11 drop) it makes a remarkable close up the next day (11/14/2008's 324.88

Could it be bargain hunters? Or could it be the Treasury/FED monster propping up the dead?

Either way, you heard it here first.

Well it appears that now I'm not alone in my suspicions:

Newsday Learns An Important Lesson

As pointed out here on the Pulpit, charging people for news is one sure way to get people to stop reading your news. Three months into their own 'pay to read' experiment, Newsday.com has a total of (35) paid subscribers. Yes...THIRTY-FIVE. They paid $4 million to upgrade the site to accept payments, and have made $9,000. Heh. Good riddance. That's the price you pay for not reading the Pulpit Newsday.

Next up: The New York Times.... I'm looking forward to that crash and burn.

Brown Win In Massachusetts Throws A Lifeline To Democrats

I suspect that the Scott Brown win in the race for Massachusetts senator will throw Democrats a lifeline. Unlike statements made earlier in the week that the Senate may delay seating Brown until they can pass a health care reform bill, I think Democrats will move to swiftly seat Brown.

The reason is simple: Democrats running for re-election in 2010 want out of the bill as fast as possible. They might push a watered down bill, which, like Keith Olbermann suggested, will only "mandate child-proof medicine bottles". I doubt they will even do that, as it will continue to keep the health care issue (which is now a Democratic albatross) in people's minds.

I also predict that the "tea bagger" jokes that have been repeated countless times by Democrats on television will suddenly fall out of favor. I bet making fun of the tea party movement Isn't going to be as popular with elected Democrats as it once was. This will leave it up to democratic mouthpieces (like Olbermann) to keep it alive. Eventually, even he'll be asked to tone it down, for fear that it will only serve to stoke voter anger against Democrats.