Author Archives: frank

TXL –> SeaTac via Kopenhagen

Der Flug war, nunja, erträglich. Am Ende hab ich dann doch ungefähr 13 Stunden weitgehend rumgesessen. Der Abflug aus Kopenhagen verzögerte sich wegen bizarrer Probleme mit der Aussenstrom-Versorgung. So ein Flugzeug hat ja heutzutage eine eigene kleine Turbine für die Stromerzeugung. Da man die aus ökonomischen und ökologischen Gründen auf dem Boden nicht die ganze Zeit laufen lassen will, kommt von aussen ein Kabel das beim Rumstehen die Maschine mit Strom versorgt. Nun begab es sich aber das diese Stromversorgung irgendwie fehlerhaft war, was dazu führte das die ganze massive Elektrik und Elektronik in dem dicken Airbus mehrere Male wegen Stromlosigkeit rebootet wurde. Und einmal passierte das offenbar genau zur Unzeit, jedenfalls gab es dann eine reichlich genervte Durchsage vom Kapitän, daß der Stromausfall dazu geführt hat das sie alle Flugdaten nochmal in die diversen Computer eingeben müssen und deswegen der Start-Slot weg ist und alles noch eine Weile dauert. Insgesamt so knapp drei Stunden, am Ende…

Erheitert wurde ich von der bereits beschriebenen gelegentlichen Anwesenheit von Internet (ich konnte mich zwischendurch nicht einwählen und als es wieder ging waren irgendwann dann doch alle Akkus alle und ich müde). Primär habe ich versucht ein bischen zu schlafen, so eine Schlafbrille und Ohrstöpsel sind eine gute Investition. Das Essen war am Anfang ziemlich gut, kurz vor der Landung gab es dann aber bizarrerweise ein Stück Pizza im Pappkarton. So eine Art subtiler Hinweis das man nun die Zone fortgeschrittener Mahlzeiten verlassen hat und sich schonmal dran gewöhnen kann?

Die Einreise war problemlos. Das Biometrische Grenzkontrollsystem blinkte freundlich grün und sagte “NO HIT” zu meinem eher nur entfernte Ähnlichkeit aufweisenden Webcam-Bild und den ziemlich unscharfen Fingerabdrücken von meinen Zeigefingern. Damit meinte es natürlich das kein Eintrag in irgendeiner fiesen Datenbank über mich lungert. Wie schön.

Hinter dem Gepäckband ist dann noch der Zoll, und der lauert nicht nur auf Geld und Gold, sondern auch auf mitgebrachte illegale Lebensmittel. Die Amis haben eine Heidenpanik vor eingeschleppten Obst-, Gemüse- und Viehkrankheiten. Deshalb habe ich dann noch schnell meinen überzähligen und vermutlich total illegalen Schweinebraten-Vollkornbrot-Paprika-Sandwich am Gepäckband verzehrt und mich darüber freundlich mit einem der herumstehenden Sicherheitsbeamten unterhalten. Der wünschte mir einen guten Appetit, nicht ohne besorgt nachzufragen ob ich etwa noch Äpfel oder Bananen mit mir führen würde, was ich natürlich guten Gewissens verneinen konnte.

Nachdem man durch den Zoll war musste man sein Gepäck nochmal auf ein Förderband laden und sich zu einer Untergrund-Monorail-Bahn begeben die die Passagiere gleitend zum Hauptterminal geleitet. Dort dann nochmal Gepäckband-Warten. Nachdem ich meine Tasche dann endlich hatte, nur noch ein bischen durch das Terminal und das Parkhaus schlurfen, den Shuttle rufen und von dem ins Hotel genau auf der anderen Seite des Highways vor dem Flughafen kutschiert werden. “Watch your step and your head.” sagte der Fahrer beim Aussteigen.

Im Hotel musste ich dann noch um ein Zimmer auf der Hinterseite bitten, die Vorderseite ist wg. Highway und Flughafen einfach zu laut. Die “Klimaanlage” stinkt leider so das ich sie komplett auslasse und mit etwas unterkühlten Zimmertemperaturen lebe, das ist dem Schlaf ja auch eher förderlich.

Netzwerk

Hier wegen vielfacher Nachfrage ein ein mtr-trace aus dem Flugzeug:

Hostname %Loss Rcv Snt Last Best Avg Worst
1. 172.16.64.1 0% 20 20 7 1 5 26
2. cbb-cds-psn.by.boeing 0% 20 20 2 1 2 7
3. sbs.by.boeing 0% 20 20 1 1 2 10
4. ???
5. 10.8.20.32 0% 19 20 604 589 623 669
6. ltn02r03-vlan25.connexionbyboeing.net 0% 19 20 736 589 629 736
7. ltn02r21-fa2-9.connexionbyboeing.net 0% 19 20 699 588 646 788
8. 10.8.16.33 0% 19 20 597 581 657 907
9. ltn02r01-fa3-3.connexionbyboeing.net 0% 19 20 604 594 652 951
10. ltn02r02-fa3-3.connexionbyboeing.net 0% 19 20 616 590 668 866
11. 12.125.155.5 0% 19 20 706 599 655 864
12. gbr1-a31s1.dvmco.ip.att.net 0% 19 19 610 610 677 838
13. tbr1-p013501.dvmco.ip.att.net 0% 19 19 724 612 672 834
14. 12.122.12.133 0% 19 19 688 610 660 769
15. 12.122.80.57 0% 19 19 652 616 653 763
16. 192.205.33.22 0% 19 19 668 629 670 781
17. p5-0.core02.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com 0% 19 19 632 624 659 743
18. p15-0.core01.sfo01.atlas.cogentco.com 0% 19 19 635 625 666 741
19. p14-0.core01.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com 0% 19 19 832 643 707 930
20. p14-0.core01.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com 0% 19 19 692 655 713 948
21. p3-0.core01.lon02.atlas.cogentco.com 6% 18 19 774 727 794 1077
22. p15-0.core01.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com 0% 19 19 764 748 806 1041
23. p5-0.core01.dus01.atlas.cogentco.com 0% 19 19 849 743 804 1004
24. p5-0.core01.ham01.atlas.cogentco.com 0% 19 19 939 746 816 1082
25. p6-0.core01.sxf01.atlas.cogentco.com 0% 19 19 881 750 807 1077
26. fe0-0.ca01.sxf01.atlas.cogentco.com 0% 19 19 841 755 823 1040
27. 130.117.22.11 0% 19 19 801 753 821 1045
28. ar-cust.bb.visp.de 0% 19 19 762 754 801 993
29. www.ccc.de 0% 18 19 779 763 821 978

Airborne blogging

Note to non-german readers: traditionally, I do travel blogging in german.

Location: N 62.46 E 01.45, Nordatlantik, westlich von Norwegen
Höhe: 10363m, Geschwindigkeit 777km/h über Grund

Ich finde das 21. Jahrhundert gerade supertoll. Dieser Eintrag ist live von obiger Position, aus einem Flugzeug. Connexion heisst der Service, WLAN im Flugzeug mit Satellitenanbindung. Funktioniert einfach. Ich habe noch nie lieber 29 Dollar für 10 Stunden Netz ausgegeben.

SAS als Fluggesellschaft sammelt gerade massiv Pluspunkte bei mir, sogar die Holzklasse ist hier (moderner dicker Vierstrahl-Airbus) erträglich. Das Essen taugt auch im Rahmen des Möglichen.

There is no economic crisis…

… only too many jobless people. Productivity gains are eating jobs faster then new jobs are generated by economic expansion (aka. Wachstum). I have said that now for quite some time. Fortunatelly Der Spiegel has now published some rather impressive numbers. In November 2005, compared to november 2004, the gross revenue of germans manufacturing industrial production grew by 6.6%, while the number of work hours needed actually shrank by 1%. Consequently, 78.200 jobs were lost.

While certainly there is some hope to generate new jobs in non-manufacturing industries, I would not count on that. The political mantra of “everybody who wants a job should get one” is no more then a hollow lie. We need new political solutions to the productivity problem, maybe some sort of “robot tax” is a possible solution to generate money to keep the unemployed financed.

If I look at the examples I know firsthand of actual industrial production, the potential for further rationalization and corresponding productivity gains are obvious. They are often just not yet implemented because they would require some long-term investments or the technology is not yet proven enough. Both conditions will not stop the next wave of robots for long, as more and more industries get into the innovation cycle of the IT industry.

Some small and mid-sized companies take another route, because the owners feel bad about firing the last few people they know and trust. They try to expand their production capacity with the same number of people, making probably someone else unemployed in a competing company that can not innovate or invest fast enough.

So, we end up with large parts of the population with no real job. We as a society need means to cope with that. Maintaining the status quo, where unemployment is a stigma that implies somehow that the unemployed are the only ones responsible for their fate, is cruel and dangerous. There is no way around a tax financed basic income for everybody and investments to channel the economically unwanted labor force into useful directions.

The basic income has huge implications, as it will make EU-style right of domicile difficult and make a couple of 100k unemployment-administration bureaucrats jobless. Probably, the states who introduce the basic income first will grab the chance to introduce biometric IDs for all citizens, as there obviously needs to be some way to not reduce the fraud from immigrants…

Update: Andreas also found the same numbers and has some interesting remarks on the same topic (in german).

Worth watching

Finally, someone has convinced Rop Gonggrijp to start blogging. Rop is a good friend and a really smart and interesting guy. I hope he will report about some of the nice stuff he did recently with What-a-Meshand other gadgets. And he got the coolest domain imaginable: read him at rop.gonggri.jp .

Bruce Sterling: Shaping Things

Longtime readers of this blog and good friends know that I consider Bruce Sterling to be one of the more interesting and important writers of our time. So no big wonder, I immediately ordered his current book Shaping Things as soon as it became available. It took me a surprisingly long time to actually finish it, but that is not because it is boring or unimportant or badly written.

To the contrary. It is one of these books where you read a couple of pages in the tram and spend all day and most likely the next couple of days to think through what you have read. I simply could only manage to ponder one or two aspects of Sterlings ideas at a time (partly also because I had so many other things to do and think about ).

Sterling manages to bring thoughts to a crisp and clear point that have moved me for a long time now. Essentially it is this:
To make the world a better place you can work by two methods
* prevent bad things from happening
* make good things happen

As a technosocial group we (people that I consider my peers and friends) have a very serious capability to build, to make good stuff happen by designing our positive and progressive ideas into systems and things and projects. We have partly neglected that for some time now, because we were so busy preventing bad things from happening. That needs to change.

Sterling in his book promotes precisely this idea. He goes on to try to grasp the coming wave of technology in some manageable terms and metrics, so it becomes possible to think about it in a concrete way. He introduces the Spime for objects that are identifiable and trackable and linkable with a virtual data shadow of all kinds. Imagine to have a total and precise inventory of all the things you own or have around.

He makes the very important point that RFID must be used to solve the recycling problem. If any device you own contains a memory of itself, of its material contents, production processes, specific properties, manual and so on, it becomes much easier to re-use it and in the end recycle it properly and at much reduced cost.

If the 3D blueprint of objects is embedded into them, it becomes very easy to built it again by means of fabbing , which is the term for all kinds of direct production of material objects from computer data. You can also easily manufacture spare parts for things that no longer are serviced by the manufacturer, you can build electronics upgrades for physical devices that are still good but just computationally outdated etc. pp. And you can go on and modify and adapt existing designs. I can see that there will be a open design movement that works like GNU for CAD files, as soon as access to fabbing devices becomes affordable. The groundwork is already being laid by the OpenDesign people who work on vendor-independent 3D CAD file format, which is essential for this vision.

Sterling is remarkably poor in suggesting ways to cope with the unavoidable privacy implications. The topic apparently does not really interest him, or he simply had no good ideas. This is where I think a lot of work is needed. As soon as the physical world becomes fully accountable, measurable in large areas and referenced in historical databases, a lot of things become possible. Maintaining control over your things becomes much more complex and demanding, as each item carries a full load of data. partly spread over various databases not under your control, with it. Sterling has the nice term “cognitive load”, the brain bandwith occupied by each object that you own, but somehow fails to elaborate on one of the more important load factors a fully networked Spime-object creates: to keep track of all the privacy implication it has. I can clearly see that completely new methods to profit in ethically questionable way from people who do not understand the new world will arise.

The best way to work with the upcoming technology wave is to embrace it and design better things with it, to built our ideals into systems. Here I can agree with Sterling wholeheartedly again. Learning to really use 3D CAD and fabbing is high on my agenda this year.

Find my joy in the simple things…

My first self-made sourdough bread. It is as tasty as it looks :-) Next time less flour on top and maybe a few minutes longer in the oven, but otherwise rather satisfying. Many thanks to Jule and Tom for the sourdough sample!

After the war

Today, I finally found the time to read up on all the blog and news comments on the We lost the war – Welcome to the World of tomorrow talk Rop and me held at the 22C3. As we intended, people got provoked, outraged, thinking, debating, accusing us of this and that, questioning our analysis, making suggestions what to do. We even got some slightly fossilized know-it-alls provoked enough to comment in blogs and news. This is good.
Of course not everyone understood the talk as we wanted it to be understood: a call to wake up, not an declaration of capitulation. This is unfortunate, but we needed the provocative title to get peoples attention.

Apparently, some people stopped listening after the first part, where we discussed the state of the world. This state is depressing, no doubt about that. Getting it all compressed into 15 minutes may be more then you wanted to hear on a long dark winter night. (Knowledge brings fear, remember?) But we need to face the realities to be able to look forward. If we take a long hard look into the crystal ball, using our intimate grasp of technology to predict how things will develop, and act accordingly, we have actually a very good chance to survive and thrive as a techno-social culture that can change things for the better and offer alternatives and options that would not be there without us. If we stumble on without understanding where the journey takes us, we risk to loose that chance.

Sure, using the term “they” to describe those in power is debatable and wrong, especially if you like your marxist-leninist or other political science flavor of fine-grained political analysis. But if you want to concentrate on the overall effect of technology and the security-intelligence complex on society and, more important, want to talk about how to prepare for the worst to come, it is justified to abbreviate. For this one goal I preferred for once a catchy “they”, instead of boring my audience to death with org-charts of the current power structures and their interdependencies.

What is certainly correct is that we need to talk about the complex relationship between techies and power. The borders are fluid. The way into a position where you can suddenly seriously influence things and get sucked into the logic of power and interest groups and realpolitik is sometimes shorter then many might imagine. Suddenly perspectives change, ethical hurdles become relative, goals shift. We need to talk about this phenomenon, especially as many of us reach a certain age where the chance to end up “inside the system” is really high. I have no good suggestions, except to try to remember where you came from, and reflect on your new goals and ideals, if they are for real and not just forced onto you by the situation.

I did not want to destroy the optimism of those who believe that blogs will save us from the evil entertainment industry powers, that podcasts will bring us eternal freedom from state-controled/controling news monopolies and that lobbying and media work can still change politics for the better. I just seriously doubt that all this will help us, once full scale surveillance and automated selective prosecution have been established, which will be the case within a few short years. Without a working set of technical solutions to preserve a breathing space, chances are that there will be little freedom left to be defended. We are the ones that need to provide this technical breathing space to the political activists.

As Rop said at the closing ceremony: We face a situation where technology has passed the point where there is any chance of toppling a dictatorship that comes into possession of all the new tools. Preventing a dictatorship from happening is no longer a theoretical exercise, but the highest priority.

You may not agree with our analysis. You can certainly point out a number of points that we forgot or ignored. You may think we are depressed doomsday prophets that neglect their own successes. You may even find it all defeatist and boring. But please keep one thing in mind: we might be right. Better to debate where to focus our energy now effectively, then just stumble along and hope that everything will be ok, somehow, magically. So lets talk.