Soil health crisis threatens Africa's food supply

Roxanne Khamsi reports for New Scientist of Africa's soil health crisis:

Population pressures combined with limited access to fertilisers threaten the future of farming in Africa, a new study warns. The report highlights the continent’s soil health crisis, revealing that three-quarters of its farmlands are severely degraded.

Technorati tags: africa, soil, agriculture, sustainability

Worldmapper

Worldmapper:

Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest.

Shown above is the map of total elderly. Check out the size of USA to, say, sub-Saharan Africa. Illuminating.

Tip of the hat to Stephen J. Dubner of the Freakonomics blog.

Free Hands Drywall Cleats

Malcolm MacDonald submitted some Free Hands drywall cleats to Cool Tools:

After renting a 100 lb drywall lift for a weekend for $60 to get the largest ceiling panels positioned, I found Free Hands on the internet. They are simple plastic cleats which you screw into the studs or joists to provide a ledge to support an edge of the drywall while you position and screw it in place.

Being at about the same point in our basement renovation, I think I might just have to pick up some of these.

Technorati tags: drywall, construction, basement, cleats, renovation

Riverworks Books makes mediocre books better

I'm about halfway through reading William Gibson's Pattern Recognition and I'm having a tough time getting into it. The story so far seems terribly contrived: a woman tries to track down the anonymous creator of a series of video segments that appear from nowhere on the internet. What makes it even more difficult is Gibson's writing style. It seems as though he's trying too hard to impress his readers with his writing ability, rather than just telling the story. I really hope it gets better, but I'm not expecting much.

Anyways, that the book is a dud doesn't annoy me as much as it might if I'd paid the regular price for it at Amazon or Chapters. As it is, I purchased it at the Riverworks Book Market in St. Jacobs for $5.

Almost all their books are $5. It's great!

They aren't always the latest books. And they haven't got as large a selection as the big chains. But for $5 a book -- and those are new books -- I can afford to pick up a few duds.

Riverworks has quickly become one of my favourite local shops. If you are in the area, I definitely recommend it.

Andrew Tanenbaum talks about MINIX 3 at UW

Michael Hiemstra tipped me off about the latest in the distinguished Lecture Series at the University of Waterloo: a talk by Andrew Tanenbaum on MINIX 3. Michael was unfortunately not able to make it, so I thought I'd write him a brief summary.

He didn't veer much from what you can find on MINIX 3 website.

He began by saying that the current crop of popular operating systems (Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, etc) is miserably unreliable. And it's no wonder. Their kernels contain millions of lines of source code, which, if we are to believe most studies, contain bugs at a rate of about 6-16 per thousand lines of code. What's more, the buggiest part of these operating systems, the hardware drivers, operate at the kernel level, leading any bug in any driver to crash the entire system. He likened this design to an aircraft carrier where every time a toilet backs up, it launches some missiles.

MINIX aims to be a reliable operating system. It accomplishes this by having a very small kernel (~4000 lines of code) whose primary responsibility is interprocess communication. Drivers run as user processes so that when they crash, they don't bring down the entire system. In fact, another service (called the reincarnation service) monitors all the drivers and restarts any that have crashed or no longer respond to pings.

It is a layered operating system. Applications utilize services that utilize drivers that utilize the kernel. Communication between the various layers is conducted via fixed-length messages. Because the messages are fixed length and because data and instructions are kept separate in the runtime image, the potential for buffer overflow vulnerabilities is greatly reduced.

He put up some performance benchmarks that show that by running the drivers in user space, the system is slightly slower than the traditional monolithic kernel approach, but not enough to keep any reasonable person from using it (~12% on average), especially given the higher reliability.

It was an entertaining talk, and well worth the trip. They even handed out bootable CDs with MINIX on it. It's a shame Michael couldn't make it. I think he would have enjoyed it.

Ontario first to subsidize solar electric power

Last week's news... Ontario first to subsidize solar electric power:

Ontario has become Canada's first province to offer cash incentives for homeowners or businesses that install solar electric power generators.

Technorati tags: energy, ontario, solar, wind, electricity

Back from EclipseCon

I returned from my trip to Santa Clara on Friday night.

If you are at all curious, our long talk at EclipseCon went fairly well. It was scheduled in the second last slot of the last day of the convention, at which point nobody is especially energetic, so it was hard to tell from the smattering of applause at the end whether anybody actually got anything out of it. In any event, they weren't energetic enough to throw any rotten produce, so I assume it went well.

We even made the photos page (here and here). That's me on the right.

EclipseCon: Scripting Eclipse Panel

Ed Burnette has nice transcript of the panel that I moderated yesterday.

It was a fun panel... mostly because I hardly had to do anything. Aside from a couple of primer questions, I got to sit back and watch a very enthusiastic audience take the discussion where it wanted to go.

That's probably a good thing as I've started to realize that my speaking skills suck pretty hard.

Note to self: join a Toastmasters club when you get back home.

Things That Make Us Smart

Don Norman:

The power of the unaided mind is greatly exaggerated. It is "things" that make us smart, the cognitive artifacts that allow human beings to overcome the limitations of human memory and conscious reasoning.

And of all the artifacts that have aided cognition, the most important is the development of writing, or more properly, of notational systems: number systems, writing, calendars, notational systems for mathematics, engineering, music and dance. So when I was asked by Forbes to help them "rank the 20 tools which have had the biggest impact on human civilization," I was ready.

"Writing," I proclaimed.

I would have to think that language has to be up there, too, although it's obviously not an artifact.

Technorati tags: writing, artifacts, cognition

Survey: 3 Out of 4 Americans Fault Federal Leadership on Global Warming & Alternative Energy

The Civil Society Institute and 40mpg.org are reporting the results of their survey:

With concerns up sharply about global warming, Americans of all political beliefs are disgruntled about weak federal leadership on global warming and energy issues, while lining up solidly behind the growing number of state and local efforts to rein in climate change problems and to tap alternative fuel sources, according to a major new Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) national survey released today by the nonprofit and nonpartisan Civil Society Institute (CSI) and 40mpg.org, which is a project of the CSI think tank.

Tip of the hat to Alternative Source.

Technorati tags: alternative, energy, global, warming, dubbya

Amazon S3: Storage on the Web

This looks useful, Amazon S3:

Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.

Tip of the hat to TechCrunch

Technorati tags: amazon, storage, web

Philips develops a woodstove that saves lives and preserves energy resources

Philips develops a woodstove that saves lives and preserves energy resources:

Philips Research today announced the end of successful trials of a woodstove for cooking in communities currently relying on less efficient means. The stove cuts the smoke and toxic emissions which are claimed to cause 1.6 million deaths a year. It also burns more efficiently to reduce the load on the existing energy supply chain, without involving dependence on non-renewable energy sources. The stove could benefit up to 300 million families in the world’s poorest regions.

Technorati tags: wood, stove, philips, energy, conservation

Yes, it's been the warmest Canadian winter on record

It may surprise readers from outside of Canada that plenty of Canadians complain about the cold winters. It annoys me, especially this winter, which, according to CBC News, has been the warmest Canadian winter on record:

It isn't final proof that the world is heating up, but federal climatologists say this has been the warmest Canadian winter since nationwide record-keeping began in 1948.

Technorati tags: climate, weather, winter, warming, canada

U.S. Senator puts forward motion to censure Bush

CBC News is reporting that Senator Russell Feingold has put forward a resolution to censure Bush:

The move is considered largely symbolic since the Senate is controlled by the Republicans and the motion has no chance of passing.

It's nice to see those Republicans covering for each other. Doesn't it just give you a warm fuzzy?

Technorati tags: usa, politics, dubbya, censure

Dennett and Swinburne Debate

Daniel Dennett and Richard Swinburne debate the existence of God.

Technorati tags: religion, philosophy, science, god, theism, atheism

Tour de Babel

Steve Yegge takes us on a Tour de Babel:

My whirlwind tour will cover C, C , Lisp, Java, Perl, (all languages we use at Amazon), Ruby (which I just plain like), and Python, which is in there because — well, no sense getting ahead of ourselves, now.

Technorati tags: programming, c, c , lisp, java, perl, ruby, python

Iran rejects Moscow's nuclear proposal

The CBC is reporting that Iran has rejected Moscow's nuclear proposal:

Iran has ruled out a proposal to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia, spurring complaints that it was wrecking any chance of a compromise to end the standoff over its nuclear program.

There's got to be more to the story than the CBC has been able to dig up. I wonder what it is.

Technorati tags: nuclear, energy, iran, russia, war

One Step Closer to Cheap Hydrogen Fuel

Dave Talbot, for MIT Technology Review, reports that GE is one step closer to cheap hydrogen fuel:

Now researchers at GE say they've come up with a prototype version of an easy-to-manufacture apparatus that they believe could lead to a commercial machine able to produce hydrogen via electrolysis for about $3 per kilogram -- a quantity roughly comparable to a gallon of gasoline -- down from today's $8 per kilogram. That could make it economically practical for future fuel-cell vehicles that run on hydrogen.

Tip of the hat to John Laumer at Treehugger.

Technorati tags: energy, hydrogen, fuel, cell, ge

Cheryl Rofer on Peak Oil

Cheryl Rofer on peak oil: I'd like to give an overview here of why I think peak oil is overhyped.

Technorati tags: peak, oil, hype

High illness rate near oilsands worrisome, says Alberta health official

The CBC reports on some troubling news out of Alberta troubling news out of Alberta:

A medical examiner in Alberta wants to know why there are reports of serious illnesses, including a rare cancer, in a small First Nations community near the province's oilsands.

Technorati tags: canada, alberta, oil, sands, cancer

Opposition questions Harper's ethics

From the how-the-tables-have-turned files, the CBC is reporting that the opposition questions Harper's ethics:

Opposition MPs blasted Stephen Harper on Thursday for his refusal to co-operate with the federal ethics commissioner, with one MP threatening to hold the prime minister in contempt.

Jack Layton sums up the situation nicely:

On an election that was supposed to be about ethical behaviour, the first thing we have is an effort to try and fire somebody who is looking into the ethical behaviour of the prime minister

I'm always amazed that voters are so eager to fall for promises of accountability from politicians on the campaign trail. It's a promise that they just can't keep; not because politicians are in any way more evil than the rest of us, but merely because they are under far more scrutiny than most of us.

Of course, Harper should be smarter than to get into the hole that he's now dug himself into. Not co-operating with an ethics commisioners investigation is just plain stupid.

Technorati tags: canada, politics, harper

Consensus Web Filters

Kevin Kelly has a nice round up of consensus web filters:

Like a lot of people, I find that the web is becoming my main source of news. Some of the sites I read are published by individuals, but I find the most informative sites are those published by groups of writers/editors/correspondents, including those put out by Main Steam Media (MSM). However for the past three months my main source of "what's new" has been a new breed of website that collaboratively votes on the best links.

Technorati tags: concensus, web, filters

Did humans decimate Easter Island on arrival?

According to an article by Bob Holmes for New Scientist, a new study by Terry Hunt finds that humans decimated Easter Island on arrival:

Archaeologists had thought that humans first arrived at the island around 800 AD, based on radiocarbon dating of kitchen scraps and cooking fires. Since the first signs of severe deforestation do not appear until the 13th century, this suggests the Easter Islanders lived several centuries without serious impact on their environment.

Not so, says Terry Hunt, an archaeologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Hunt and Carl Lipo of California State University at Long Beach, US, radiocarbon-dated charcoal from the earliest human traces in a new excavation on the island. The site, Anakena, is Easter Island's only sandy beach and has long been regarded as the likeliest spot for first colonists to settle. To their surprise, the wood dated no earlier than 1200 AD – several hundred years more recent than they had expected.

Technorati tags: civilization, ecology, easter, island, sustainability

No future for fusion power, says top scientist

David L Chandler reports for New Scientist that there is no future for fusion power:

Nuclear fusion will never be a practical source of electrical power, argues a prominent scientist in the journal Science.

Even nuclear fusion’s staunchest advocates admit a power-producing fusion plant is still decades away at best, despite forty years of hard work and well over $20 billion spent on the research. But the new paper, personally backed by the journal’s editor, issues a strong challenge to the entire fusion programme, arguing that the whole massive endeavour is never likely to lead to anything practical or useful.

Now that that's settled, we can get all those nuclear physicists working on some of the really important problems, like creating a variety of broccoli that tastes like chocolate.

Technorati tags: nuclear, energy, fusion

Why I Hate Frameworks

Benji Smith explains why he hate frameworks in a wonderfully entertaining rant:

I'm currently in the planning stages of building a hosted Java web application (yes, it has to be Java, for a variety of reasons that I don't feel like going into right now). In the process, I'm evaluating a bunch of J2EE portlet-enabled JSR-compliant MVC role-based CMS web service application container frameworks.

And after spending dozens of hours reading through feature lists and documentation, I'm ready to gouge out my eyes.

Technorati tags: programming, frameworks, software