The coast of Honduras is only 40 miles away, but the Bay Islands seem much further removed from the home country. The old influence of England, pirates and former slaves is still strong in the Bay Islands, but there's a difference, too: To the people of Roatan, Utila and Guanaja their islands don't end at the ocean. The marine world is their treasure — one they proudly share.

Preserving this link because I'll be planning a trip to Honduras later this year or early next.

Sport Diver Magazine - Blue Treasures

Biologists in the Great Lakes region - which spent an estimated $120 million in cleanup costs in one five-year period following the zebra mussel invasion in 1988 - have tried everything from chemicals like chlorine, copper sulfate or molluscicides, freezing or drying, to electrocution and radio waves to kill them, but none of those methods worked.

So we know who will maintain the oceans when the Cockroaches inherit the earth.

Washington Examiner: Top News

Here's something you probably didn't know: Ireland today is the richest country in the European Union after Luxembourg.

Fascinating, because this really didn't seem to be the feeling on the ground in Ireland. They still have a very "underdog" and "down and out but still kicking" mentality. I attribute this to being hard to discern where you are on a derivative -- and GDP is a derivative indicator of wealth production and distribution. One looks at the Old Money wealth of Europe, and assumes that it is prosperous without noticing that your boat is rising faster than theirs.

The results have been phenomenal. Today, 9 out of 10 of the world's top pharmaceutical companies have operations here, as do 16 of the top 20 medical device companies and 7 out of the top 10 software designers. Last year, Ireland got more foreign direct investment from America than from China. And overall government tax receipts are way up.

The End of the Rainbow - New York Times

Rattle wrote:

Two things that have been said often apply here. First, Chinese foreign policy consists of one word: oil. Second, its likely that any conflicts with China would be fought out on an economic battlefield.

So what does everything think? Should we be concerned about this?

The problem with the Chinese argument is that there is an asymmetric economic investment risk here. In the event of conflict -- or a poorly brewed pot of tea for the party chairman -- China would be all too likely to nationalize whatever resources it wanted. The complaint already exists that even private enterprise is guided by the government; just add direct policy initiative. China, like Russia, can nationalize foreign investments because they are so obviously growth markets that foreign investors are willing to accept the risk. And CNOOC is already state-run.

The US can not afford to seize investments because of our governance and because our markets are the best in the world because of foreign investor confidence. The US Treasury is considered a risk-less investment and the global markets would completely meltdown if there was ever even a whiff that the US Government was no longer playing by honorable rules. And the US economy is about the least robust economy without the global capital markets.

So if China decided CNOOC should shut down Unocal's operations but preserve the assets, we couldn't do much. And the US couldn't reciprocate by buying PetroChina and doing the same -- PetroChina wouldn't last long as a company with non-government owned assets.

It makes me nervous. Particularly that China is so vehemently attempting to pretend that this isn't a problem, it is just a business transaction. They are spilling their propaganda machine onto the global stage, where they expect everyone to know that what they say is unlikely true but go along with it anyway.

Ever play a strategy game where a player telegraphs their intentions early and there still isn't much you can do about it? It sucks. Like watching our trade deficits and fiscal policy.

RE: CNOOC: Unocal Bid Not About Politics - Yahoo! News

Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.

Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

Lost Liberty Hotel

Decius wrote:

Yes. I've wanted to see something like this for quite some time. This sounds very similar to the sort of system I've envisioned. However, I need to read the spec in detail and see if this was implemented properly.

Having now examined the basics -- no analysis, just understanding what they are trying to do -- it seems sound but not as far reaching as what you are talking about. That is deliberate.

This is just a small but well-considered step forward.

2. FOAF sucks. How does the new site actually get meaningful bio information about me when I create my account using this system? This seems like a more important problem to solve. We've been thinking of making a bunch of extensions to foaf here, but we've got a lot of other work to do.

This is not what this system addresses. It is a step in that direction.

What it addresses is just this: I wish to comment on a site that I do not have an account on. Rather than make an account -- yet another identity, etc -- OpenID would let me log into the site with my identity from another site. All that is established is that I am the controller of a url that I specific to authenticate me. This is a very weak guarantee, but with this one can extend to greater things.

It is very similar to the PGP-Signed Comments idea. Enable the preservation of identity across CMS systems.

An example of how I see this working.

If MemeStreams ran an OpenID server

You (Decius) decide to respond to Brad's LiveJournal announcement. Rather than create a JiveJournal account -- a blog, etc -- you log in as www.industrialmemetics.com (as listed in your about page here). LiveJournal checks out that page, and determines that you are who you are if MemeStreams says you are. You log in to MemeStreams, and authorize the MemeStreams' OpenID server to validate your id to LiveJournal. LiveJournal marks your comment as Decius of MemeStreams, or Industrial Memetics, or whatever.

If MemeStreams accepted OpenID

Presumably some of my friends read my memestreams feed on LiveJournal. If they want to comment, however, they either have to join MS or post anonymously. Both has consequences. Easier if they could just say who they are.

If OpenID is exploited

Someone gets to post to MemeStreams under an identity with no reputation. I can log in under any domains or URLs I may have control of. If it is a problem, you keep a list of valid -- or invalid -- OpenID authentication server and discard the rest.

Overall consequence: Does not prevent spam. Does not provide structured mechanism for account creation. Does not enable e-commerce. Does not make toast. Does not overcommit.

3. Email verification. Will LiveJournal validate that they have verified the users email address? Can I trust them?

As they say on openid.net, this is not a trust system. It is just the first step. It makes netizens' lives easier in consolidating the number of identities they need to maintain.

But it seems like something MemeStreams should support, for the scenerios above.

RE: news: OpenID support

Looking for work is an exercise in selling yourself. You write cover letter after cover letter, listing the parts of you that you respect the least, listing the selling points that make you valuable in a buyer's market. You leave out the little details that you tell yourself in the morning to make things okay. You don't mention the way your heart flutters when you meet your lover's eyes across the table, the way your feet felt like lead at your aunt's funeral. You write cover letter after cover letter, listing the same store bought traits in the same wording, day after day, hoping to find another job.

And then maybe one day you just snap a little. You sit down to write a cover letter, and something entirely new comes out.

And you send it anyway.

Beautiful. Well written, and each tells a story of wonder.

Overqualified

LiveJournal now supports OpenID. You've probably noticed this option when you go and leave a comment.

If you're confused, that's understandable: OpenID is a little new, and will make more sense as an increasing number of sites on the web start to support it.

In a nutshell, OpenID lets you take your identity with you, proving to other sites on the web that you own a particular URL. LiveJournal's OpenID support lets you use your LiveJournal identity (just your URL) on other websites which take OpenID, and also lets you take your non-LiveJournal identity and use it here.

Any chance Memestreams would climb onboard? I was just discussing this with Bucy last night. I haven't looked at the spec, but I think the overall goal -- reputation (non-MS style) building and maintaining across web communities -- is an important step to a better social internet.

news: OpenID support

The Supremes seem to be saying that intellectual property rights are on par with real property rights. which is all well and good. But does this mean that local governments can condemn the "unused, decaying or underutilized" intellectual property of its citizens and use that
intellectual property for their own - the greater good- economic benefit???

That's a hot little comment there, mixing the major SCOTUS decisions of last week and this one. Could a local government -- or the federal government -- seize material that should be in the public domain, and put it there, provided it shows a plan for why that is good for economic development (neglected otherwise) and pays a reasonable amount for it (off the backlists for 5 decades -- call us to claim your shiny dollar).

Won't happen, but kind of a fun concept.

The Big Picture: Grokster Decision is meaningless to filesharers

Inspired by Daniel Horn's Obfuscated V contest in the fall of 2004, we hereby announce an annual contest to write innocent-looking C code implementing malicious behavior. In many ways this is the exact opposite of the Obfuscated C Code Contest: in this contest you must write code that is as readable, clear, innocent and straightforward as possible, and yet it must fail to perform at its apparent function. To be more specific, it should do something subtly evil.

2005 Underhanded C Contest