Mitch Gann’s

Sooner or later, you have to move on.

Today I cleaned out my trove of 3.5 inch diskettes — nearly 150 of them. For those of you who grew up with giant hard-drives and CD-ROM/ DVD drives, the “floppy disk” was the way computer files were saved and distributed in the olden days.  I never thought of 3.5 disks as “floppy” myself, though many people called them that. Unlike the 5.25 disks, the smaller ones had a hard-case and did not flop.  The 3.5s that I discarded were a mixture of personal data disks and commercial installation disks — including an unused, plastic-wrapped set of MS-DOS 6.2 installation disks and a used set of Windows 3.1 installation disks, about six disks in each set.

I ran magnets across the personal disks just in case they contained sensitive info.  One of them had a label “Novel 1993.”  I assume I wrote a novel that year — or more likely the first chapter of a novel. Maybe I have a paper copy somewhere.

Those 3.5 disks held between 1.44 and 2.0 MB of data.  So altogether, the 150 disks contained at most 300 MBs — which you could put on a tiny USB thumb drive with room to spare.

I still have a box of a dozen 5.25 floppies, the oldest software and files I own.  I can’t bring myself to toss them out.  One floppy contains another novel, or so the label claims.  The rest are mostly devoted to computer programming.  There is a copy of the legendary Borland Turbo Pascal, circa 1988, the finest and fastest DOS programming compiler ever sold — and for just fifty bucks a copy.  There is a disk labeled “Play Ball” that contains a baseball game I created for my father, and a couple disks with an extensive and specialized record-keeping program I wrote for his business.

Apparently, it’s still possible to hook a 5.25 drive to your computer. You can emulate DOS, too.  I know I won’t ever bother, but I will keep the box in a back corner of my closet, just in case.

A week after I wrote about Ray Kurzweil here, the New York Times picked up the scent in “The Coming Superbrain.”

The NYT article by John Markoff discusses the rebirth of scientific interest in artificial intelligence, which had a bad spell after initial rosy forecasts did not pan out.  But will a self-aware superbrain emerge any time soon, and will it be nice or nasty?  Markoff notes that this question is moving from  science fiction into reality.  He brings in Kurzweil about half way through the article.  Through his sources, Markoff expresses skepticism about Kurzweil’s idea of living long enough to live forever. For instance, the article concludes with a quote from robotics expert Gary Bradski: “Kurzweil will probably die, along with the rest of us not too long before the ‘great dawn’ . . . . Life’s not fair.”

In truth, it is easy to be skeptical about living forever.  No one has ever done it.  Even the most optimistic religions present heaven in terms of “life after death.”  Kurzweil is cutting out the death part.  As I said, it’s easy to be skeptical.

Markoff focuses on the issue of emerging artificial intelligence and Kurzweil’s notion of humans and computers mind-melding somehow or other. But in his book, Kurzweil spends as much time discussing two other technologies — genetics and nanotech — which he argues will provide a “bridge” to the joining of human and machine minds. How much of a difference that makes, I don’t know.

Markoff provides a link to a trailer of “Transcendent Man,” an entry at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival that explores the debate over Kurzweil — is he the crackpot prophet of a new religion or a legitimate scientific investigator?

I have been reading a book this week — the old-fashion kind with paper pages — Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near (2005).  Kurzweil is an inventor, futurist and Baby Boomer who believes that he and other Boomers just might be able to live long enough to live forever.

Even though the book was a best-seller in 2005 and proclaimed the 13th most blogged about book of 2005 by the NY Times, I somehow missed it. I had heard of or read eight of the first twelve books on the list, so it isn’t that I am completely out of the loop.  (Oddly, the 14th most blogged about book for that year was Orwell’s 1984.  This suggests to me that there is a lot of paranoia on the Web.)

Anyway, I was surprised that I hadn’t heard about Kurzweil until recently because living forever happens to be one of my ambitions. According to Kurzweil, we just may be able to do it; “we” includes Baby Boomers who take care of themselves enough to last another 30 years or so.  By then, accelerating advances in bio-tech, nano-tech and computer science should guarantee anyone who wants it immortality.  You will, of course, have to get intimate with machines; that is, become a machine yourself. Some may see this as a drawback, especially if you get stuck in a computer running, say, Windows 2038. (I think this will be one time to spend a little more and go with a Mac.) Then there is the question of room-mates. What if you get stuck with neighbors you can’t stand and you can’t get away from them ever for all time? However, from the scientific perspective, being dead also has clear drawbacks for any organism. And it makes it harder to get credit or a good table.

Kurzweil calls this approaching change the “Singularity” because it will be a one-time event in human history — perhaps in the history of the universe. He thinks that the destiny of the universe is to achieve a maximum state of information.  Merging human intelligence (including emotional intelligence) with artificial intelligence is a big step toward fulfilling that destiny.

It sounds a little nuts in summary — a geeky, secular version of The Rapture. And there is a risk that if we don’t handle things just right, trillions of malevolent nanobots will take over and destroy us all.  Those of us who are getting up there in years and facing oblivion in the next couple of decades, give or take, may be willing to accept the risk. But is it right to gamble the future of humanity to achieve personal immortality?  Or for once in our self-centered lives, ought we just to go gentle into that good night?

I spent time this week getting my online life organized and streamlined.  There is a certain irony in this, given the real clutter in my at-home office. But you have to start somewhere.  So I started with email.  I was inspired by How to Make Gmail Your Ultimate Productivity Center in ZenHabits.

First, I set up my Gmail account to handle all of my email from various accounts.  Then I resolved to keep my inbox empty.  I set up a label (folder) called “Needs action” where I stick any message I need to respond to but can’t at the moment. Every other message I answer/ delete, answer/ file or just delete or file. 

So far, so good. But it is easier to set up a system than to stick with it over the long haul. 

I tried some Gmail gadgets, but the only one I have stuck with is “Tasks,”  a simple things-to-do gadget from Google Labs.

Now to deal with the actual as well as virtual clutter in my life.  I wonder if Google has a gadget for eliminating stacks of books and papers?

I admit it, I’m a geek.  A Gray Geek.  If I had been born 20 years later than I was, I would be an IT or Internet professional of some sort. Maybe just ten years later.

Being a computer geek, I have played around with alternatives to MicroSoft Windows — free, open-source alternatives, which boils down to various flavors of Linux.  I’ve tried Red Hat, Knoppix, Ubuntu and a couple others.  I’ve installed them as dual-boots with Windows or as a stand-alone OS on an old desktop.  They’ve all worked, and the installation process has gotten progressively easier.  Linux works out-of-the-box (so to speak) with more and more hardware.  Still, none of the versions of Linux proved compelling or useful enough for me to turn to it on a daily basis as a sub for Windows.

I guess what I wanted was a less geeky Linux.  I found one.

It’s  a commercial Linux designed for brain-dead easy installation on a wide variety of Windows XP and Vista computers.  It’s also designed for fast-loading when all you really want to do is check your email and browse the web.  The product is called “Presto” and it is sold by a company called  Xandros at http://prestomypc.com/.

Xandros Presto is free to try for a week and $19.95 if you like it and want to buy a license to continue using Presto on a single computer.  I tried it on an older Dell laptop running Windows XP.  Installation was quick and painless — just like installing any  program in Windows.  I got Presto to work with my home wireless network, which I never quite managed with any other Linux. I always had to use a LAN cable, not the best for a laptop.  The Presto web site claims that some users can be browsing the web less than 20 seconds after pressing the power button.  It takes a little longer on my laptop, but seems instantaneous compared to Windows XP.   Shut down is almost immediate — maybe four seconds.

You need four GB of available space to install Presto. It’s a big download, almost 500 MB, and took over half an hour on a high speed connection (high speed on my end, but apparently not on the other — I used the CNET Downloads.com option).

The initial installation comes with FireFox 3, Skype, and Open Office.  You can easily install other applications from the Presto “Store,” which features lots of  free, open source software as well as try-before-you buy stuff.  There is a “Store” icon on the Presto desktop, but you can also browse the applications at http://presto.cnr.com/.

You can access, open and edit documents created with Windows using the OpenOffice suite on Presto.

Windows XP was/ is taking several minutes to load on this computer — about 10 minutes before I can do anything useful, despite my best efforts to speed things up.  Now it takes half-a-minute.  That’s worth $20 to me.  Of course, hardware can differ a lot on Windows machines, and it’s hard to say if a new OS will work at all without trying it first.  So you want to try Presto for free before you buy a license.

If other Linux versions prove this easy to install, use and update — this ungeeky — then Windows may be in big trouble.  Unless MS plans to sell Windows 7 for twenty bucks. What would you say the odds are of that?

(Hat-tip to Dick DeBartolo, the Giz Wiz. I learned about Presto from his daily podcast with Leo Laporte.)

OK, it’s time to start writing again. Like the French, I took off most of August.

I discovered something new in the world of micro-blogging yesterday. Everyone knows about Twitter and its 140 character posts.  But some open-source developers have created a platform called “Laconica” that can be installed on any server to create custom micro-blogs. They also feature a 140 character limit to posts.  The great thing about Laconica (and any similar open source systems that might come along) is that the micro-blogs will be able to communicate with each other. You can establish an identity on one micro-blog site, and use it on others.  Right now, online communities tend to be “silos” unto themselves.

At the same time, a micro-blog could have its own special focus and specialized audience.  For instance, I have joined Leo Laporte’s micro-blog on his “This Week in Technology (TWiT)” site.  He just set it up a couple days ago, using Laconica, for the community that watches his video-casts at twitlive. Laporte calls his micro-blog “the Twit Army Canteen.” The community is mostly male and all technology junkie.  All Twits, in other words.

John McCain is running a TV ad in Michigan that blames Barack Obama for the high price of gasoline and claims that McCain is the one person who knows how to solve the problem of America’s dependence on foreign oil. McCain’s solution is simple: drill more oil wells in the USA.

I have a few issues with this ad. To begin with, Obama, as a first-term US senator, cannot be to blame for the high price of gas.  As far as I can tell, Obama has been a do-nothing senator; he seems to have spent most of his time and energy plotting a run for the White House.  Perhaps the point of the McCain ad is more that Congress is blocking action on more US drilling, and that Obama’s party is currently controlling Congress.  OK, but McCain has been in the senate a long time, much longer than Obama, and there were years when both Congress and the White House were in Republican control.  Yet the ban on drilling in certain off-shore sites and wild life reserves remained in place.

Another problem is the ad’s apparent claim that only McCain knows how to solve the crisis.  It’s exact wording is that “one man knows” the solution.  Why does it have to say that?  To me, this is part of the dangerous “cult of personality” politics that has been becoming more and more prevalent in US politics.  I don’t know how far back cult of personality politics go, but for US presidents, I’d argue it started with FDR.   Before that, we had a lot of stodgy presidents.   Of course, it is no coincidence that FDR was the first US president to exploit modern media effectively.   It was the radio then.  Now it is mostly TV and the Internet.   When we can see and hear our political leaders, we don’t want them to be stodgy or unattractive.  We don’t want thinkers because thinkers are boring and they might challenge us to think.  We want do-ers, just like in the movies.  We want heroes, or at least rock stars.  Or we want inspirational speakers.   We want that one special person who knows all the answers, who is always right.   I am not blaming John McCain or the Republicans for the cult of personality approach.  Obama is the perfect example of it.  But to suggest that only McCain has the answer is to suggest that he has some special, supernatural gift of seeing.  I don’t think so.

I especially don’t think so when McCain’s unique insight produces “drill more oil wells here” as the way to solve the energy crisis. For that idea, you need a special gift? As insights go, it falls short of messianic. Let me ask,  who will drill these dozens or hundreds or thousands of new oil wells?  From what I have read, there is not an over-abundance of drilling rigs and drilling crews ready to pock-mark America with new wells.  Quite the opposite.  Large oil companies are multi-national.  They are producing enough oil right now to satisfy the world’s needs — albeit at a high market price.  The big, multi-nationals don’t care about “America’s dependence of foreign oil.”  What they care about is producing as much crude as possible as cheaply as possible while getting it to market efficiently and earning the highest price they can. If they can earn massive profits from the wells they already operate around the world, why would they suddenly flock back to the US?  Because the new president asked them nicely?

Some independent, wild-cat companies might want to start sinking wells here and there and everywhere.  Americans would apparently go for that idea as long as “everywhere” did not include their own neighborhood and as long as the increased drilling and refining resulted in significantly reduced gas prices.  As soon as proposals for drilling and refinery-building get specific, they are apt to meet with strong local opposition. For instance, a recent poll taken in my home state found that people supported more domestic oil drilling — but not in the Great Lakes.  Not in our Great Lakes.

Go mess up some other shoreline.

However, in spite of environmental concerns, many large and small companies do pump a lot of crude from American wells still.  Domestic production is already increasing.  According to an article in our local newspaper this past weekend, oil companies are even opening up old, capped wells in southeast Michigan — including several within a 10-minute drive from my house.  It is now economically feasible to operate wells that only produce two or three barrels of oil per day.   This is because of the high price of crude on the world market.   At today’s oil prices, uncapping old, low-producing wells is an easy way to make money.  The same logic would probably lead to more drilling in currently protected areas of the United States were they to be opened up.  But would this lead to cheaper oil and gas? The whole point is that oil production is increasing in the US because the price is high.

Interestingly, the oil tycoon and Republican businessman T. Boone Pickens has come out with a plan to end America’s dependence on oil.  He has been promoting his plan on TV and the Internet.  His premise is that we cannot drill our way out of the crisis:

America uses a lot of oil. Every day 85 million barrels of oil are produced around the world. And 21 million of those are used here in the United States.

That’s 25% of the world’s oil demand. Used by just 4% of the world’s population.

Can’t we just produce more oil?

World oil production peaked in 2005. Despite growing demand and an unprecedented increase in prices, oil production has fallen over the last three years. Oil is getting more expensive to produce, harder to find and there just isn’t enough of it to keep up with demand.

The simple truth is that cheap and easy oil is gone.

(The Pickens Plan)

Pickens goes on to argue that “the United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power.”  He also is big on natural gas, which burns cleaner than gasoline and is located in abundance in North America.  I’m not necessarily sold on all the details of the Pickens Plan, but it seems more clear headed than the McCain plan.

Pickens is not running for office, so he can afford to think.