idallassleeping less and reading more

A recent New York Times Magazine article called “Mass Natural” discusses Wal-Mart’s plans to add add organically grown food to it’s stores. I didn’t even know Wal-Mart sold food so I’m pretty out of the loop on that. Anyway, they’re a gigantic retailer of whatever they sell so this move would have huge ramifications on the entire organic food industry. I’m a big believer in eating as much organic as possible and see the methods of the industrial farm industry to be basically evil. Conventional industrial farming goes for quantity over quality as far as the food goes and very little, if any, thought is put into the quality of life for the animals and the land. Giant retailers like Wal-Mart who are always trying to push down prices are one of reasons the farmers have cut corner after corner and we have ended up with food that is pumped full of antibiotics and other lovely inedibles like cardboard.

Organic farmers, on the other hand, tend to go for quality over quantity, and organically grown food typically costs quite a bit more than conventionally grown. It also tends to be sold in smaller stores and that drives prices up as well, of course. Wal-Mart has said they will only charge 10% more for organic food over similar conventional food. That sounds sorta awesome since organic food will be available to more people, but will the organic food they sell really be as good for us we’ve come to expect? That’s very unlikely. It will likely be shipped from other countries at great expense to the environment, and may even be unhealthy since the farms will use basically the same methods they use now but without the crutch of antibiotics.

Anyway, the article is great and everyone should go read it now. And don’t shop at Wal-Mart.

Some people at MIT have been working for awhile on developing a laptop computer for use by people in the developing world. The goal is for a rugged computer designed to be used mostly outside that only costs $100 per unit to mass produce. They have also designed a custom user interface built on Python, GTK, Gecko running on Linux. The goal is to encourage interaction and communication and provide an Internet platform for people who have likely never used or perhaps even seen a computer before. It’s a noble concept and I hope they go far with it!

Pictures of the first prototype have been unveiled and it looks pretty goofy. It does make me want to touch it and play with it, though! More details and some interesting commentary at Ars Technica.

The major networks are finally doing something smart in their fight to keep their advertising properties relevant in the age of the DVR. The major television networks are experimenting with a variety of part advertising/part entertainment concepts now. These include fake commercials for the fictitious “Hanso Foundation” aired during episodes of Lost (as part of a larger “Lost Experience” concept involving non-televsion content), fake comedic PSA’s shown during episodes of The Office, and a $2 million interactive game called “Gold Rush” being put on by CBS and AOL. I don’t think I’ll personally be tempted to actually watch commercials again (the shows just really aren’t good enough to make me watch commercials!), these steps will likely work for some of the viewers out there in TV land.

This was passed to me and I think it’s pretty nifty. It’s a pair of glasses that requires piercing the bridge of your nose to wear. This exact concept has come up (somewhat jokingly) in various conversations I’ve been involved in over the years and has now become reality. To help explain away the ‘extreme’ nature of these things, the creators said, “Paying … to have someone cut your eyes and shoot a laser in them (just so you don’t have to wear glasses) seems extreme to me…”. Viva la future!

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (commonly known as EFF) recently filed suit against AT&T alleging that the phone company has been helping the NSA to spy on their customers. The EFF claims to have seen some secret documents with proof. The case has just begun but shocking details have already been revealed. An engineer who used to work for AT&T has come forward to support the EFF’s lawsuit and has released a statement. If it turns out to be true, the ramifications are huge. It claims AT&T gave the NSA full access to all of the data on their network as well as the data on other networks that passed through their network, and the NSA installed equipment to monitor that data. With a network provider as big as AT&T, that would probably end up being maybe 1/3 or more of all US Internet traffic. Wow!

The Smithsonian Institue is teaming up with Showtime Networks to form Smithsonian Networks. The joint venture has the aim of developing television programming for a new cable channel called Smithsonian on Demand. At first thought that sounds pretty cool as they may produce some quality documentaries using the large archives of material contained in the Smithsonian, but a lot of people don’t see it that way. A part of the deal is the restriction of access to content in the public archives, and that would essentially kill the production of many documentaries before it ever begins. The Smithsonian claims they need the money badly and would not be able to continue on without more cash flowing in. I can see the reasoning for both sides of the argument, but it’s still a sad turn of events.

“Forrester Research says that more than half the people with a DVR routinely skip commercials” … Only half? That quote is from page 2 of this great ArsTechnica article about the rise of product placements in tv shows. Being able to pause and rewind whatever show you’re watching is very nice but for me skipping commercials is THE reason I must have a DVR from now on. It’s freaky to hear that nearly half the people with a DVR do not routinely skip commercials. What sort of weirdos are these people?

Coldplay’s latest CD has some anti-copying technology on it to try to prevent purchases from turning it into MP3 files and sharing it with the world but it also renders the disc unplayable in many devices. On top of that the album is freely available from file sharing networks so the annoyance isn’t doing anything to prevent piracy. More almost hilarious details at ARSTechnica.

It’s funny how things sometimes turn out. Petroleum was the replacement for burning coal way back when because petroleum could be made to burn cleaner or hotter or brighter or something. Whatever the reason, it was better. Well now as we’re all starting to experience problems related to diminishing world oil supplies it looks like coal may be rising from the grave to trump oil. A process for converting coal into liquid diesel fuel was developed way back in the 1920’s in Germany and is now starting to surface as a potential source of fuel into the future. Maybe Volkswagen hasn’t been so crazy to stick with diesel engines for so long after all!