Two interesting pieces recently, one by Charles Roxburgh at McKinsey and another by Jared Diamond of Guns, Germs & Steel fame.
Alot of the answers are familiar (sunk cost effect, herding instincts, special interest lobbies, tragedy of the commons, religion, ...) but seeing them all together in one place effectively dispells the myth that we're rational animals.
Spam has spread from people's inboxes into the news. The Economist has an article on the subject this week, and though their coverage of anti-spam measures is poor, they include an interesting graph that shows spam rapidly approaching 50% of all email.
I'd say 50% is about right for my work email, where I get 100-200 messages a day, about half of which are spam. But my personal email box sees a lot less legitimate traffic, so spam ends up accounting for perhaps 95% of mail arriving there.
At home I use Mail for Mac OS X (10.2), which has a built-in spam filter that takes out 90% of my spam and diverts only about 1% of messages that I actually want to see. For my mum, I have Razor set up on the server side (courtesy of our wonderful new hosts, DreamHost) and she reports similar levels of success. Here's an article about other software that's out there. And for those with an artistic bent, it's also possible to stop spam with poetry.
But spam also has to be choked off at source, which is why it's good to hear that some powerful people are going after the offenders.
And if you just want to laugh about it instead of cry, check out these two pieces.
Collins & Co. have written a vision for the future of grenomics research in Nature
Richard Dawkins has a new book. Well, a collection of old essays really. Jerry Coyne gives it a good review in Nature. Some of the quotes are delicious. For example, here's Dawkins on Sephen Jay Gould's idea that no new phyla — only lower level taxa — are currently evolving:
It is as though a gardener looked at an old oak tree and remarked wonderingly: "Isn't it strange that no major boughs have appeared on this tree recently. These days all the new growth appears to be at the twig level!".
And here he is in defence of atheism:
Modern theists might acknowledge that, when it comes to Baal and the Golden Calf, Thor and Wotan, Poseidon and Apollo, Mithras and Ammon Ra, they're actually atheists. We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
Finally, on religious xenophobia (shortly after 9/11):
To label people as death-deserving enemies because of disagreements about real-world politics is bad enough. To do the same for disagreements about a delusional world inhabited by by archangels, demons, and imaginary friends is ludicrously tragic.
It seems that the smallest blogs can strike a blow against the mightiest corporations. I must make time soon to get those $*!&@s at BT Internet for stealing over £150 from me.
According to Business Week, online music services are getting better at last. I haven't tried any of them yet but since I use OS X, that might not be an option. I still live in hope of Apple's Music Store being worth the money but it's interesting to see that Business Week (among many others) don't think that Apple should buy Universal. They make a few good points and I suspect that Steve Jobs will try hard to take a minority stake in the music company rather than forking out for the whole thing.
Microsoft is up to it's usual tricks and I'd be the last person to claim that they are a force for good (let alone good software). But as Tim O'Reilly has pointed out, Microsoft (like every commercial company) not only has a right to do everything it legally can to make money — it has a moral obligation to it's shareholders to do so. It's venal politicians who are to blame for failing to reign in the monopolist.
Did you know that you can become more powerful that the government simply by taking out a patent? Scary!
Cringely's piece this week is a melancholy number about SIDS and why open source software will not last.
After endless speculation, I can't wait to find out exactly what Apple has in mind for their Music Store. This could be our best chance to escape from the brain-dead approach that the major record labels have taken so far, and might even get me buying music again.
I enjoyed this blog by Mark Johnson, especially the following bit:
I've chosen bioinformatics primarily because I think the genomics and biology revolution is going to make the so-called "computer revolution" into an historical footnote. It's the renassiance science of our age, and I can't bear not to be involved.
which I think captures well the excitement of those few who appreciate what bioinformatics might become one day.
Er, no.
At least, it's far too soon to claim so. But that doesn't stop João Magueijo from trying. I haven't read his book (and, realistically, probably won't ever get around to it) but I've been following with mild amusement the obvious irritation that he engenders in many reviewers.
Now the excellent Paul Davis has come up with the most measured review I've seen so far. But even he seems to dislike Magueijo's purile pot-shots at the scientific establishment. And since Magueijo described one of my bosses (and a great guy) as a first-class moron, I'm certainly not going to stand up for him.
One day Einstein will be proved wrong and the new 'right' answer will be wonderous to behold. But I do hope the discovery will be made by someone in whom we can have more respect as a human being.
Phew! I've just completed a transfer of my site, my mum's site and my friend's site to a new host. I'm using DreamHost and so far I've been very impressed with them.
Now I need to get around to updating my home page for the first time in three years — Hey, I've been busy lately!
This is my first blog entry. I'm using Moveable Type and so far it seem very, very good.