Dave's friends N' kin.

An American university has found a new way to finance student loans. All they have to do is to be overweight.

Professor James L DeBoy, head of the Health, Physical Education and Recreation department at Lincoln University, who proposed the programme, says that around 30 students are unlikely to pass.

"Around 15% of the student population each fall has failed to earn a BMI of less than 30," he told the BBC World Service. So we anticipate two dozen not being able to complete the course."

If I were one of those students, I would be reaching for one of the hundreds of lawyers beating down my door, after dancing a jig of victory. I could now look forward to paying off my student loan, a house, and money in the bank, after the lawyer’s 30% cut.

This is the most egregious version of University hubris that I have ever heard of. This could cost the entire Lincoln University Board of Reagents to be fired. A Lawyer would be rubbing his palms with glee. This has nothing to do with the student’s academic requirements.

But students come to colleges to get an education…and for me to work for four years to get to the end of my course, and for somebody then to tell me that I cannot graduate because of something to do with my weight, I feel that has nothing to do with university.

"It should not be a requirement. It should be an option."

It shouldn’t even be an option. Physical fitness has never been a requirement before and it may even be illegal under the American Disabilities Act.

If I were one of those students, I would be jumping for joy at the opportunity. The opportunity to nail these bastidges into the ground.

All work published here, except those belonging to others, falls under US copyright law and I release no rights to modify. You may release links to my original articles but that is all.

He vill take us to ze Moo-oon, yah.

Finally some movement! Gary McKinnon, the notorious self-admitted cracker of NASA and US DOD systems is finally going on trial under US Law. It is understandable that his mother is upset. However, this guy did some very bad things and cost a bunch of people a lot of work, as well as compromising US security, including crashing some critical Department of Defense systems during the 9-11 event.

In a letter today the home secretary ordered McKinnon’s removal to the US on charges of breaching US military and Nasa computers, despite claims by his lawyers that extradition would make the 43-year-old’s death "virtually certain".

"The secretary of state is of the firm view that McKinnon’s extradition would not be incompatible with his [human] rights," said the letter, dated 26 November. "His extradition to the United States must proceed forthwith."

Folks, this is a win for everyone, except McKinnon. It send the message that cracking will not be tolerated. That if you find yourself in a system that isn’t yours and you do not have permission to be there then leave it alone and be gone.

Janis Sharp compared her son’s treatment to that of an "animal" today.

"To keep someone in a heightened state of terror for almost eight years is against anyone’s human rights," she told BBC Breakfast.

"I wouldn’t do it to an animal, you wouldn’t do it to an animal, for a person to go through this every second of every day is against anyone’s human rights."

McKinnon was accused in 2002 of using his home computer to hack into 97 American military and Nasa computers, causing damage that the US government claims will cost more than $700,000 to repair. That, in real world terms, is criminal behavior and like any criminal, he should go to jail for it.

Since he was caught, McKinnon has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of high-functional autism. However, many crackers can claim this. McKinnon should be kept away from computers for the rest of his life because he isn’t responsible enough to merit the access. If that means keeping him in an institution to protect the rest of us from his ilk than sobeit.

All work published here, except those belonging to others, falls under US copyright law and I release no rights to modify. You may release links to my original articles but that is all.

Dubai’s debt problems drive Asian share prices down sharply.

Frankly, I haven’t been paying attention to this one. This is mainly because I know that Islamic law doesn’t approve of interest rate based banking. I had no idea that Dubai World was trading on ANY exchange.

Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei fell 3.2% to 9,081.52, its lowest level since July. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng was down 4.9% at 21,239.5.

Oil prices also fell. US crude dropped 4.5% to $74.51 a barrel and London Brent Crude was down $1.26 to $75.73.

Frankly, I haven’t looked at them.

It said on Wednesday it would ask creditors of the state-owned Dubai World and Nakheel to agree to a standstill on billions of dollars of debt as a first step towards restructuring.

Dubai World, the conglomerate that led the emirate’s expansion, had $59bn (£36bn) of liabilities as of August, a large proportion of Dubai’s total debt of $80bn. Nakheel was the builder of three palm shaped islands off Dubai.

The key words are “State Owned”. A little more investigation has revealed that that the liabilities consist mostly of bonds. What is worrisome is that Dubai also runs a huge Sovereign Fund that invested much into US and UK Banks at bail-out rates. The chain of liabilities could cause those loans to be called back early, before those banks had adequately recovered. It is all a domino game and it could halt, if not reverse, the current recovery.

This is not an issue in Europe but could be a real issue with the US and the UK¹ , who are currently dependent on these Sovereign Funds.

1. No, the UK is not a part of Continental Europe [↩]

All work published here, except those belonging to others, falls under US copyright law and I release no rights to modify. You may release links to my original articles but that is all.

Regardless of what the hypsters are saying, Google Chrome does not represent a new idea but it might challenge Microsoft. Even more at The Register. Yes, it is a paradigm shift … back to the past!

Summary

Those who primarily use their PC as a communications device will probably be well served with Chrome. Considering that those are the same folks that are likely to be oblivious members of a botnet, this is all to the good. Those of us that actually need local applications will stay with Windows, MacOS, or Linux.

Concept Benefits

Most of the benefits I see are for Enterprises. Most workers do not need local applications. In fact, most enterprise applications are better as web based applications. Just two days ago I downloaded and installed the NolaPro accounting package. It is completely free and while I am still evaluating it, it seems to be fairly complete. Instead of a client on every PC, one simply points the web browser to the accounting URL and voila! The best part is that you can have many different people access the same system and they do not have to have a client or pay Intuit Quick-Books seat-license fees. Other examples are webmail, customer databases, and eCommerce B2B applications.

Without the need or utility of installing local applications, the workstations become much more virus and wyrm proof. This will eliminate many security vulnerabilities. The same is true for the home and those home systems running Chrome will stop being members of a botnet or will be less likely to become one.

Concept Limits

What cannot be done on such a device are Word processing, Spreadsheets, and multi-media creation. These three things have always defeated attempts at virtualization simply because of performance requirements¹ .

One example is this article. Even though it is published on the Web and you are reading it via a browser, it is being written with Windows Live Writer. I do this even though there is a very good WSYWIG editor in Wordpress. This is because a compiled local client on my laptop is ever so much more responsive and less clunky. Spreadsheets have this problem in spades! Ajax might help but local clients are still more useful.

These are the sorts of applications that are the strength of the stand-alone PC and remain the strength even when it is connected. It is the sort of local processing that is still needed and what Chrome does not do.

In the case of an Internet outage, like I had yesterday morning² , you are basically screwed. On the other hand, I was merrily working away, completely oblivious to the outage until my father-in-law called to ask me about it .

Technology (Geek-speak here)

One thing that you cannot do with an Operating System like Chrome is software development. You cannot compile and execute local code unless special provisions are made. The only development that can be done is on the server side.

All hype aside, Cloud Computing is nothing more than the old 3270 connected mainframe, reborn. Okay, so it looks prettier and you click on ‘OK’ instead of pressing the Enter, Send, or Clear keys.

They may call it a Data Center instead of a Service Bureau but it is still where the heavy lifting gets done. Instead of an IBM System/360, it is an x86 box running Windows or Linux³ . It is NOT a new paradigm! At least, the costs have come down … for the moment⁴ .

So what does that mean for Google Chrome? It means that it turns a PC into a terminal. Albeit, it is not a simple terminal in the old sense. However, the old Wyse thin client is no worse⁵ . The point is that it is a 30-40 year old concept⁶ for which IBM owns most of the prior art, if not the actual patents. It moves the user interface out to Chrome and away from the server. This leaves the server free for the core application processing but burns massive amounts of bandwidth for communications. Then again, we do have the massive bandwidth available to burn these days .

1. Largely related to system bandwidth v. communication bandwidth [↩]
2. No Internet connectivity from between Nyon and Coppet for 4 hours. [↩]
3. Actually, the performance is better for the x86 box. [↩]
4. Just wait until a significant number of companies go to the cloud and the Data Centers begin to consolidate. Data Center fees are bound to go up then. [↩]
5. why do you think Microsoft licensed Citrix and developed RDP? [↩]
6. APPN/APPC, LU 6.2, CUA/CUI, etc [↩]

All work published here, except those belonging to others, falls under US copyright law and I release no rights to modify. You may release links to my original articles but that is all.

A few days ago, the BBC published some charts itemizing cost of power and energy  in absolute terms.

Their analysis did miss a huge variable namely, the required kilo-watt hectares to implement each energy solution. This could be vastly more important that the cents/kWh that they do publish here.

It is a useful link. I intend to use it for more articles.

All work published here, except those belonging to others, falls under US copyright law and I release no rights to modify. You may release links to my original articles but that is all.

Everywhere you turn, you seem to come across new reasons why things cannot be done, cannot be changed, cannot even be considered. Nor, though, can any of these things simply be accepted. Someone, somewhere is refusing to recognise a solution. So entrenched has this person's pessimism become that it has turned into a desire to cut off the nose to spite the face. Soft words and reassuring gestures are now required, regardless of how tempted you may feel to threaten, to argue or to fight.

Mood: its Monday - you want bounces?