Google 'OS'? kind of.

Though the title suggests a Google OS, this is actually Ubuntu Linux with a bunch of Google features integrated so smoothly that Gmail, Google Calendar, and maybe desktop search work like native programs.

Funny thing about that. If your Internet lags, your system performance might seem to lag, because your 'apps' are really web 2.0 apps that rely on external servers.

I hearby promise to set this up in a virtual os on my compy when I get home. I'll add comments to this post to keep you appraised of my opinions on this. I'd probably ignore this except that they're marketing it as a real alternative to Windows machines with the support of Walmart.

Also, it's essentially open source, just not on the GPL licence, this is notable on a Creative Commons license that allows for derivative works. If this takes off, and the Google integration improves, ... . Well, I don't know if I can even think about that right now, that's probably bigger than my mind can follow effectively. But it would probably be cool.

The All Seeing Eye - New policies

US drafting plan to allow government access to any email or Web search

Without this law, anybody plotting a terrorist attack is going to use encryption, so why bother? If you won't be able to understand the only people that you claim you want to watch, then why pass a law saying you can look at everything everywhere anytime with no notice or accountability?

I lack expertise in this area, but I've read some good stuff about the security features of the BSD operating system.

It seems the interest in encryption has been decreasing for the past 4 years or so. I wonder if this policy will have an effect on that trend.

Seagate has released a full encryption drive, which would not protect against this policy, but would protect against your data from theft of your drive physically.

What would help against this policy is OpenPGP.

Student Expelled For 'getting involved' on campus

Student expelled for student body activism

NEWSFLASH: When you make a stink about something, your target will look at you're background.
The real news is that they might expel you for making amateur movies (nothing indecent, either) for a contest. If you read it through, there was apparently an ad the student put together that scared the president so much he asked for a temporary bodyguard. But seriously, there was no real threat in the ad.

In a related story, from the article above:

FIRE is simultaneously pressuring Valdosta State to reverse its “free speech area” policy, which is unusually rigid in restricting student expression to a single stage on the 168-acre campus, only between the hours of 12 and 1 p.m. and 5 and 6 p.m., with prior registration.

GO MASON.
Go Mason Student Government.
Hat-tip to 'flutterecho' at Slashdot

Candidate Calculator

My Top Match
John McCain (R) - 80.33%,

My Other Top Matches
Tom Tancredo (R) - 77.05%
Sam Brownback (R) - 74.59%
Duncan Hunter (R) - 68.85%

Middle of the Pack
Fred Thompson (R) - 68.85%
Ron Paul (R) - 67.21%
Mike Huckabee (R) - 56.56%
John Cox (R) - 53.28%
Governor Mitt Romney (R) - 49.18%
Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) - 46.72%
Bill Richardson (D) - 34.43%
Mike Gravel (D) - 31.97%
Dennis Kucinich (D) - 22.95%
Christopher Dodd (D) - 19.67%

Bottom of the Barrel
Joseph Biden (D) - 18.85%
John Edwards (D) - 18.03%
Hillary Clinton (D) - 16.39%
Barack Obama (D) - 15.57%

Thanks to Jerry who sent me this Candidate Calculator.

The results surprised me since I think I more closely match Ron Paul. But then, there isn't a question asking if I think the IRS should be closed.

I think probably my opinions on Iraq and Iran are probably what pushed Ron Paul all the way down to fifth place.

I actually ran through this twice, and both times came up McCain. I do find it interesting, that 6 out of the next 7 matches are incredibly low in the polls.

Information Disclosure

New law enhances Government transparancy

If you pass enough laws, eventually you'll accidentally come up with something good.

Freedom

Libertarianism didn't used to be radical.

Sometimes, I randomly say 'freedom' to break a silence, or as a greeting, or any time really. Occasionally, when I do this, somebody gets confused and says, 'Freedom?' like they've never heard of it.

I now know why I say it. Many people don't know what I mean when I say 'freedom,' and it gives me a chance to tell them. Freedom is the liberty to say what you want, think what want, be what you want, love, hate, do, avoid, and try to change whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else.

I promise not to go too overboard on these feel good posts. I don't promise that I might go overboard in my support of freedom.

Carbon Tax

For those of you who maybe thought, wow that looked like a good policy, freedom should take a back seat for policies that good. Let me go ahead and make a specific argument about it.
If people use more electricity than they should, then it's because there's costs that they don't feel. Like costs to the environment, and costs to somebody else's comfort in some other way, econ calls those unfelt costs 'externalities.'

I really feel like emmissions trading would be a good thing. Basically, somebody (probably a government) sells pollution credits to industries that need them. This sets a cap on the amount of pollution and people who don't pollute much don't have to pay for them. This might raise the cost of coal electricity to above that of solar, since solar doesn't really pollute. A book about it.

This is the basic idea behind the Kyoto treaty, but there's a bunch of other problems that make that particular treaty a bad plan. (politics...)

Problems with Kyoto:
Harvard magazine
ktracy.com
npr

Freedom or Welfare

Don Boudreaux: Rampaging Regulators

Professor Boudreaux explains again again the case for freedom to exercise good judgement.

Boudreaux for President!

Taxes galore

I don't know for sure that Mr. Paskel is the gentleman who authored this text. But I thank him for forarding it. I especially thank Jerry Holsworth for sending it to me. I don't beleive in forwarding emails myself, but I encourage my friends to read my blog, so I'm posting this here.

---- Original Message -----
From: Stanley L. Paskel Sr.
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 9:18 PM
Subject: What is a Billion???

The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

Add to this list: A billion grains of salt fills a bathtub.

UPDATE: I don't know how long this has been circulating, but I just recalculated how long it takes to blow through a billion dollars. According to figures in this white house report, it takes the federal government 3 hours, 7 minutes, and 48 seconds to spend a billion dollars.

There is a lot more to this email and you can see the rest at GoogleDocs.
I highly recommend it.

Big brother in your lap

Laptops Searched and Confiscated at U.S. Border

The government can and apparently does search your laptop contents when you travel internationally.

For those of you who may want to be safe in this, here's a coupe of encryption programs that will help you hide your contraband data.

TrueCrypt
&
Omziff