Don't you get it?

What makes you happy is keeping the other guy down.

The data show that what matters on the happiness front is not how much money you have, but whether you have more (or less) at any given time than everyone else.

Pew Research Center: Are We Happy Yet?

From the State of the Union:

"A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and that recognize the matchless value of every life. Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator -- and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale." (Applause.)

The Whole Truth? Why bother if you're not under oath? It's always so boring and complicated. You aren't a wonk, are you?

So what scientists have been doing is inserting human genes into mice, to produce similar genetic overdoses in their development. As I reported before, there have been partial insertions, but now a team of researchers has inserted a complete human chromosome 21 into mouse embryonic stem cells, and from those generated a line of aneuploid mice that have many of the symptoms of Down syndrome, including the heart defects. They also have problems in spatial learning and memory that have been traced back to defects in long-term potentiation in the central nervous system.

These mice are a tool to help us understand a debilitating human problem.

George W. Bush would like to make them illegal.

This may be true, but don't call him "anti-hybrid":

"We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen."

A mouse is a mouse. Who are we to tweak it? Let's focus on nanobots instead. Those are safe -- and ethical, too!

Here's a thought. If sending iPods to Congressmen can change their thinking on intellectual property, maybe someone could send 535 of those green fluorescent mice to the Capitol. That would be sweet.

Human-Animal Hybrids

An amazing statistic I hadn't heard before was that a survey by Big Champagne found that DRM-protected files exclusively released through iTunes typically appear in unprotected form on P2P networks 180 seconds later.

Update: This is actually very old news; here is a reference from 2004 which cites Kazaa and 120 seconds. here is a Cory Doctorow talk from 2005 which repeats the 3 minute figure without specifying a network.

DRM-a-go-go

Those little yellow ribbons aren't really for the troops. The real purpose of those ribbons is to ease some of the guilt we feel for voting to send them to war and then making absolutely no sacrifices other than enduring two Wolf Blitzer shows a day. There should be a ribbon for that.

I need to compile a database of sarcasm like this, along with the recent NYT essayist who wrote:

"I do not avoid books like "Accordion Man" or "Elwood's Blues" merely because I believe that life is too short. Even if life were not too short, it would still be too short to read anything by Dan Aykroyd.

For the record, I support the troops. And always remember, Everybody Loves Raymond.

Warriors and wusses

There's a big debate going on the US and Canada about who is going to pay for Internet wiretapping.

It won't be long now until the telcos start trying to pass on the cost of wiretapping to the major content providers. It'll be likened to existing security-related overhead expenses, like "loss prevention" at retail outlets. If Barnes and Noble has to pay for private security guards, why shouldn't Amazon have to do the same?

VeriSign's conflict of interest creates new threat

"We have the ability to access virtually any packet data network and by using mediation equipment deployed in our network, VeriSign can provide a secure, reliable, cost-efficient solution that enables carriers with GPRS or CDMA 1x technologies to comply with all lawful intercept requirements without impacting network performance."

When I see VeriSign talk about "lawful" intercept, for some reason I am reminded of a particular scene from The Simpsons episode BABF12, "Pygmoelian":

The Simpsons arrive at the Duff Days site. Homer switches off the beer music, to the kids' relief. As soon as they step out of the car, though, a live band plays exactly the same tune.

Near the entrance, a man is dressed as Surly, one of the Seven Duffs.

        [loudly] Drink Duff! [under breath] Responsibly.
        [loudly] Drink Duff! [under breath] Responsibly.

VeriSign NetDiscovery [Lawful] Intercept Service

While acknowledging outsourcing isn't going to come to a halt, the report states that higher-level, or what it calls "dynamic" engineering work, will stay within US borders.

"We are not competing for jobs with China and India. We are competing for capital and technology. And they're winning."

11 Indian engineers can be hired for the cost of hiring one American.

"In regard to other countries, the US is 25th per capita in undergraduate engineering degrees awarded."

U.S. engineer education not in dire straits: study

Decius wrote:

Cell Phone Call Record $110

Give us the cell phone number and we will send you the calls made from the cell phone number.

I like this part:

This report is for informational purposes only. This is not for use in court. If you need the records for court, you will need to subpoena the records directly from the carrier.

The whois records are pretty opaque:

Registrant:
Ist Source Information
ATTN: LOCATECELL.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447

The site appears to be fairly new; the record was created on September 26 of last year.

UPDATE: You can read a recent Chicago Sun-Times article, "Your phone records are for sale", about Locatecell. This article was posted to the cryptography mailing list, which is probably what prompted the MemeStreams thread.

This was covered in the Washington Post more than six months ago, "Online Data Gets Personal: Cell Phone Records for Sale."

"This is a person's associations," said Daniel J. Solove, a George Washington University Law School professor who specializes in privacy issues. "... It's a real wealth of data to find out the people that a person interacts with."

The company that operates Locatecell is Data Find Solutions, and they are located in Knoxville, TN.

I like this part of the Locatecell order form:

Phone searches are provided by third party, independent search experts. These experts are independent researchers and Data Find Solutions Inc does not know how they do the research or what databases they access.

As the news articles explain, EPIC has asked the FCC to investigate. EPIC offers a compendium of 40 Websites Offering Telephone Calling Records and Other Confidential Information (PDF).

Looking for startup capital -- or a business model? MemeStreams could put the social network information behind a walled garden. But would anyone want in?

UPDATE #2: Politicians call for better phone record privacy

Cell Phone Number Research

It turns out that looking at the aggregation of billions of search queries people type into Google reveals something about our curiosity, our thirst for news, and perhaps even our desires. Considering all that has occurred in 2005, we thought it would be interesting to study just a few of the significant events, and names that make this a memorable year. (We’ll leave it to the historians to determine which ones are lasting and which ephemeral.) We hope you enjoy this selective view of our collective year.

Google Press Center: Zeitgeist

One of the most densely populated metropolitan areas in the world, Hong Kong has an overall density of nearly 6,700 people per square kilometer. The majority of its citizens live in flats in high-rise buildings. In Architecture of Density, Wolf investigates these vibrant city blocks, finding a mesmerizing abstraction in the buildings' facades.

These are amazing photographs. I wish I could go to the exhibition.

MICHAEL WOLF