Category Archives: Connecting the Dots

Web Server on your cellphone – a new design space

Jonas Landgren on Information Technology and Emergency & Crisis Response: Web Server on your cellphone – a new design space.

Last night, I successfully installed Nokias Mobile Web Server on my S60 cellphone. I have been aware of this service for some while but I never really took the time to install it, until now. My reaction to the experience of accessing my cellphone via my laptop web browser was significant. Like a kid on Christmas Day. The web server is a stripped down Apache server with some add-ons. The Nokia software opens up the mobile phones functionality so you can do many nice things in a remote mode. My mind goes a bit wild when, in a hands-on-fashion, I explore what it could mean that all mobile devices are connected to the internet. The range of new solutions seems endless. For emergency and crisis response, it might mean that we could design and deploy solutions that in new ways provide connectivity across a network of response actors. There is no longer a need to add yet another device such as a tabletpc just in order to provide a two-way data communication. I hope that we in a short time will be able to publish some desirable concepts that shows the possibilities for Swedish Emergency and Crisis Response. Until then … have a look at: http://mymobilesite.net/

However, what works in Sweden, an eminently sensible society, might fail in the United States, where utility companies have a spotty record in committing investment into infrastructure which doesn’t promise a rapid payback.

Toyota Recall: Instructions and Observations

2009 Corolla Sedan

2009 Corolla Sedan

If your car is accelerating out of control, whether it’s a Toyota, a BMW, or any car,

  1. Put your foot on the brake – and press the brake with a steady pressure.
  2. Put the car in Neutral. (Just like manual tranmissions, automatic transmissions have a “Neutral” setting. You shouldn’t drive if you don’t know this.)
  3. Turn on the Hazard lights.
  4. Pull over.
  5. and Above All,Don’t Panic.

Putting the car in “Neutral” disengages the transmission from the accelerator, assuming there isn’t a transmission problem. Don’t turn off the engine: you will lose the ability to brake and steer. Don’t put the car in “Park.” It will slam to a halt, throw you and your passengers against the steering wheel or the windshield, damage the engine, and you will be rear-ended by the jackass tailgating you.

It also works regardless of what is causing the problem – and it might not be because of sticky accelerators. Writing in the LA Times, Jan 30, Ralph Vartabedian and Ken Benslinger, note that:

The pedal maker denies that its products are at fault. Some independent safety experts also are skeptical of Toyota’s explations. ‘We know this recall is a red herring,’ one says.

Federal vehicle safety records reviewed by The /LA/ Times also cast doubt on Toyota’s claims that sticky gas pedals were a significant factor in the growing reports of runaway vehicles. Of more than 2,000 motorist complaints of sudden acceleration in Toyota and Lexus vehicles over the last decade, just 5% blamed a sticking gas pedal, the analysis found.

Continue reading →

Barack Obama, a Systems Thinker in the White House

President Barack Obama.

President Barack Obama.

In his State of the Union Address <video, transcript Englsh, en español>, President Obama said “The best anti-poverty program is a world classeducation

.” He described a positive, or reinforcing, feedback loop. Education enables people to accomplish more, earn more, and better educate their children, who also accomplish more and earn more. It is one of the most important differences between the populations of New Jersey and West Virginia. This is described in detail in Thinking in Systems, by Donella Meadows<link>, (C) 2008, published by Chelsea Green<link>, ISBN 978-1-60358-055-7.

The President also asked for a better health care plan. I can answer that in five words: “Single Payer; Medicare For All” <link>  just approved by the California Senate. Medicare works for my octogenarian father. Health Insurance Care doesn’t work for a 20-something friend of mine. He just graduated from college. He has no job and therefore no medical insurance. If he was a full-time student he’d be covered on his parents’ insurance. A simple reform would cover recent graduates until they find a job that pays a living wage and provides health insurance benefits. Another would be by expanding Medicare to cover all citizens. This is much easier said than done. Our medical care system cannot adequately care for approximately 50 million people – one out of six. This can’t be changed overnight – we need to train more doctors and nurses, and build more hospitals, but it must be changed.

Image showing mountain strip mined for coal.

Mountain strip mined for coal. Chris Dorst, Charleston, WV Gazette.

Energy is another set of systems problems. No one who has seen a once pristine valley after strip mining or “mountain-top removal”  uses the term “Clean Coal.” Countries like Denmark, Ireland, Israel, Japan, and Sweden built their economies with education not extraction of natural resources. As the President alluded to, conservation and clean, renewable energy technologies – solar, wind, geothermal, hydro – can be implemented faster, at a lower cost, and with fewer negative economic externalities than traditional fuel intensive resource based technologies like fossil fuel and nuclear power. This suggests another of the differences between New Jersey and West Virginia – the “Blessings of Education” versus the “Resource Curse” <link> from which economies built on extraction of natural resources suffer.

Arklow at Sunset

Arklow Bank Wind Park, off Arklow Bay, Ireland. Image courtesy Oneworld.net, UK.

The President needs economic advisors who start think in terms of ecological economics <link1 / link2>, of metrics like the Genuine Progress Indicator, GPI <link>, rather than Gross Domestic Product, GDP <link>. Simply put, ecological economics is neoclassical economics with a better understanding of the long term and of costs. Spending one dollar – or one trillion dollars – to clean up a mess is not as good as allocating those resources to build factories, houses, libraries, museums – the infrastructure, culture, and community of a nation.

God, Keynes, and Clean Energy

Columbia University

Columbia University

NY. Jan. 25. Mark Fulton, “Climate Change Strategist” Deutsche BankAsset Management, spoke at Cary Krosinsky’s class in Sustainable Investing at the CERC, the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, Earth Institute, Columbia University.

Krosinsky, Vice President of Trucost, recently co-edited and wrote the book Sustainable Investing: The Art of Long Term Performance with Nick Robins of HSBC. He is an Advisory Board member of the Association of Climate Change Officers (ACCO) and founder director of InvestorWatch. Trucost has built and maintains the world’s largest database of carbon emissions and other environmental impacts as generated by the world’s largest public and private companies. Their data and expertise is used by leading global fund managers and asset owners to manage carbon risk. Continue reading →

Obama and The People Fight Terrorism

President Barack Obama

In response to the Christmas Day attempted terror attack, President Obama’s actions and former Vice President Cheney’s comments highlight the differences between the two administrations: The Bush Administration was famous for not being “Reality Based” (NY Times). The Obama Administration investigates first, thinks, and ACTS(Reuters), while accepting responsibility for any failures.  “Ultimately, the buck stops with me,” Obama said. “As president, I have a solemn responsibility to protect our nation and our people.” (CS Monitor)

On 12/29/9, President Obama said it was a systemic failure (Christian Science Monitor). On 1/3/10, he said the attack was planned in Yemen (NY Times). We also know he approved US counter-terror strikes in Yemen, which occurred on 12/24/09 (NPR /  NYTimes) and which killed Al Queda Terrorists. Continue reading →

Copenhagen, India, China, the US, and GAIA

I’m beginning to think that Copenhagen was what it had to be, what it could only be. It fulfilled its Buddha-nature. Thus, I don’t consider it a failure. Nor do I consider it a success. It was what it was, what it could have been, what it had to be:

A gathering of emissaries from the 64 corners of the earth.

Courtesy of NASA

Earth From Space, Copyright NASA

Isaac Asimov observed in Foundation (ISBN: 978-0553293357) that “diplomacy, is the art of speaking for a long time without saying anything.” Most of the diplomats in Copenhagen had multiple agendas. Unfortunately for billions of the world’s poorest, the public agendas of sustainability and the abstract “Gaia Hypothesis” were distant fourth and fifth behind the private agendas of power, money, and influence.

The inconvenient truth is that much of Bangla Desh, California, Louisiana, Southern Florida will disappear, submerged, like the mythical Atlantis. China will continue to build 2 coal plants per week. And people will die.

But disregarding this notion, a Chinese diplomat Continue reading →

Jim Edwards: FDA Has Only 2 Inspectors Watching Drug Factories in China

Jim Edwards reported Friday on BNet that the FDA has all of rwo inspectors in China. From FDA Has Only 2 Inspectors Watching Drug Factories in China.

But the fact that the FDA has just two people to cover a territory 3.7 million square miles in size raises questions about how often those factories and labs will be inspected to make sure the drugs they are producing are safe for Western — or indeed any — patients. An FDA spokesperson said in a statement to BNET:

We have two inspectors for medical products. I must emphasize that in addition to those two in-country inspectors, many U.S.-based FDA inspectors continue to make short-term trips to China to perform inspections.

BNET noted a year ago that Pfizer

alone — the world’s largest drug company — is expanding in China faster than the FDA can possibly visit its facilities. Pfizer’s goal (prior to the merger with Wyeth) was to be in 137 Chinese cities. At the time, the LA Times reported that the FDA had 12 people in China. Which would mean that to inspect Pfizer’s facilities the FDA would have to inspect one site every 2.7 days, and take no vacations or weekends. Here’s the FDA’s historic rate of Chinese inspection for all companies, from 2002-2007, according to the GAO:

The lowest rate of inspections in these 10 countries was in China, for which FDA inspected 80 of its estimated 714 establishments, or fewer than 14 establishments per year, on average.

We don’t know – but hope that Edwards follows up on –

  1. do these two work together or alone:
  2. do either speak Chinese?
  3. If so, what dialects?
  4. What integrity controls does the FDA have in place?By the same token, what personnel protection does the FDA have in place?

Some of Edwards’ other excellent reporting on these issues:

Myth and Science on Global Warming

Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense

This article presents and debunks myths about climate change.

Evidence for human interference with Earth’s climate continues to accumulate

By John Rennie, Scientific American, November 30, 2009

“On November 18, U.S. Sen. James R. Inhofe (R–Okla.) took the floor of the Senate and proclaimed 2009 to be “The Year of the Skeptic.” Had the senator’s speech marked a new commitment to dispassionate, rational inquiry, a respect for scientific thought and a well-grounded doubt in ghosts, astrology, creationism and homeopathy, it might have been cause for cheer. But Inhofe had a more narrow definition of skeptic in mind: he meant “standing up and exposing … the costs and the hysteria behind global warming alarmism.”

Continue reading →

Jobs, National Security, Energy, Environment, Economy

Architecting a Clean, Secure, Sustainable, Non-Carbon and Non-Nuclear Energy Future

Middelgrunden, Denmark, near Copenhagen

Middelgrunden, Denmark, near Copenhagen

  • 100 Gigawatts offshore wind. $300 Billion.
  • 100 GW land based wind. $200 Billion.
  • 50 GW solar. $325 Billion.
  • 250 GW Clean, renewable, sustainable Energy.  $825 Billion.
  • Save the World: Priceless Continue reading →

Coal Miner Deaths

In China, 407 Coal Miners Died THIS YEAR

. 104 Died THIS WEEKEND in the Xinxing coal mine – described by Chinese authorities as a SAFE

mine. 528 miners were underground at the time of the explosion – in which 19.7% of the miners were killed! China Mine Disaster Continue reading →

Do We Need More Wilderness?

A poll in the Summit Daily News

, Colorado website asks if we need more wilderness areas. The questions:

“Yes, we need more wilderness area protection.”

“No, it’s too much land taken from other public use.”
“Don’t really know too much about it.”
“Need to know more about the plan, first.”

To add your voice, Summit Daily News

.

Popular Logistics Congratulates President Obama on the Nobel Prize for Peace, 2009

Popular Logistics Congratulates President Obama on the Nobel Prize for Peace, 2009.

Popular Logistics is a Policy Blog, not a Politics Blog. We don’t really have to answer “Why Obama?” We are not on the Nobel Committee, we don’t know anyone on the Nobel Committee, and the Nobel Committee does not answer to us.  However, since I’m diving into this head first, here’s how I see it.

People watching the election results in Athens, Greece

Watching the election results in Athens, Greece

No other world leaders come close. Not Gordon Brown, not Nicholas Sarkozy, not Angela Merkel, and not the Pope.  And certainly not Putin, Medvedev, Castro, Kim Jong-Il, Chavez, or Achmadinejad, altho I am sure that the Nobel Committee could have awarded the prize to a dissident or a journalist in Russia, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, or Iran.

Step-Grandmother Sarah Obama in Kenya

Step-Grandmother Sarah Obama in Kenya

It has been speculated that the Nobel Committee wanted to influence Obama to de-escalate the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If so, maybe that would be a good thing. If more world leaders act with history in mind, if they compete to make the world a better place for all, not only a better place for their friends and family, then the world would be a better place.

Israel

In Jerusalem, Israel

And look at these photos. These are Obama supporters around the world from the day after the election. This is why Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. With his focus and eloquence, his intelligence and education, his humble origins and demeanor, Barack Obama inspired a strong majority of American voters in the election of November, 2008. Prior to the election he inspired a small army of supporters, mostly volunteers, who took his campaign to the streets of all 50 states.

Sydney, Australia

Sydney, Australia

He has inspired people of good will all over the world who see in him, and in the America, and the Americans who nominated, elected, and inaugurated him the America and the Americans who climbed out of the Great Depression with public works not a military rebuilt for an invasion, who fought and won World War II, who put men on the moon, and brought them safely home.

At his school in Jakarta

At his school in Jakarta

We see an America in which, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, we are “judged by the content of our character not the color of our skin.”

The America in which President Kennedy said “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

“

Senator Robert F. Kennedy said: “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why… I dream of things that never were and ask why not.“

And Senator Edward M. Kennedy said: “It is better to send in the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps.“

Questions on Sustainability and Human Ecology, Part 3

Dancing Naked On The Bridge – While You’re Building It

Part 3 in a Series.

Robert Quinn describes wresting with uncertainty as “Building the Bridge as You Walk Across It” (ISBN 0-7879-7112-X Amazon / City Lights)

I just spent a day configuring an iPhone to “talk” to a Microsoft Exchange email system, to transmit “packets of data” back and forth. We humans call these “packets of data” “email messages.”

The Blackberry, by Research In Motion , is really easy to configure, even if you’ve never done one. Blackberries have been around for about 10 years, and have been tightly integrated with MicroSoftOutlook and Microsoft Exchange for all that time. Most implementations use a Blackberry Enterprise Server, aka a “BES” or “BES Server.” They are really easy to configure. Apple‘s iPhone is very new. Apple looks forwards, not backwards, so configuration with Exchange 2007, the “current” release is easy. Implementation with Exchange 2010, the next release, will also be easy. Implementation with Exchange 2003, the most recent release, is easy – after you’ve done it. The first one is a gangbuster, humdinger, man-eater, meat-grinder. I spent hours on the phone with network security people, Apple tech support, and email gurus.

Continue reading →

Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Ted Kennedy, curtesy OurCommonConcern.com

Ted Kennedy, curtesy OurCommonConcern.com

“His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives: in seniors who know new dignity; in families who know new opportunity; in children who know education’s promise; and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just, including myself.”

– Barack Obama

A United States Senator since 1962, Ted Kennedy lived by the words of his brothers.

At his inauguration, Friday, Jan. 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy said, “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

While campaigning for President in 1968, his brother Senator Robert F. Kennedy, said “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why… I dream of things that never were and ask why not.”

America should not reform its health care system because Ted Kennedy would have wanted it. America should reform its health care system because it’s broken. Senator Kennedy knew this and knew how to fix it. In his own words, “We are all part of the American family and we have a responsibility to help members of that family when they are in need.” He also said, “It is better to send in the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps.

One question remains: If Kennedy was opposed to Cape Wind, why? Is the answer here?

Magna Carta on Display in NYC, Fraunces Tavern, Sept. 15 to Dec. 15, 2009

Image of the Magna Carta

Image of the Magna Carta

The year is 1215. A group of English Barons called King John to the fields of Runnymede to set his seal to the Magna Carta, to relinquish claims to what was called the “Divine Right of Kings,” to agree that:

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled – nor will we proceed with force against him – except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.

One of the four remaining copies will be on display at the Fraunces Tavern Museum

, 54 Pearl Street, New York City, from September 15 to December 15, 2009.  Telephone 212-425-1776, ext. 18, and 212-425-1778. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children, aged 6 to 18, and senior citizens. Admission is free for children 5 and under.