queuefull blog

An interesting article on queueing theory and our behavior in traffic, called The Urge to Merge in the New York Times:

The first time I deliberately made special invite room for a sidezoomer this summer — a lane-drop bottleneck en route to Lake Tahoe, me dubiously opening the extra-long space in front of my car — I swear I could see the zoomer beside me start to accelerate, hesitate and then with me murmuring, Come on pal, we can do this together, finally shrug his S.U.V. into the merge. Neither of us had to brake. I’ll be honest, though: I missed my minuscule occasion of power, and I’m guessing he did, too

In addition to traditional physical searches of your person and belongings, the US Customs and Border Patrol claims the right to search and seize any data that you are traveling with. The contents of your electronic devices (phone, laptop, etc) are all subject to review, seizure, and/or copying by the US government as you cross the border. Being a US citizen does not grant you any additional rights or protection. And apparently the government is not subject to laws prohibiting theft of confidential data, violation of copyright or DRM mechanisms, or unauthorized access to computing resources when the data is crossing the border. Which shouldn’t surprise me, I guess.

Their latest article suggests that “it’s important to note that for more than 200 years, the federal government has been granted the authority to prevent dangerous people and things from entering the United States.” I’m not sure that information qualifies as either a dangerous person or a dangerous thing, and I don’t think it should. This policy defies the reasonable expectations of US citizens and is contrary to the fundamental principles of a free society.

Yes, I realize the issue is more complicated, that it’s not black-or-white. That’s my point. The US government should respect that today’s electronic environment, tools, and uses do not clearly fit into the scope of their traditional mission. They should not default to fascist behavior but should instead default to respectful behavior toward the people they’re in place to serve. Expanded powers in response a changing environment should be achieved through public discourse and legislation.

Whether or not you agree with my view of the details, please take a look at the following campaigns:

• Electronic Frontier Foundation action site: https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?alertId=373&pg=makeACall
• “Hands Off My Laptop,” from Center for American Progress Action Fund: http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/288/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6239

Via this Treehugger post, I found a brilliant article entitled Too Many People, Too Much Consumption. I find myself wanting to quote much of the article, so I’ll settle on an excerpt from the opening:

Over some 60 million years, Homo sapiens has evolved into the dominant animal on the planet, acquiring binocular vision, upright posture, large brains, and — most importantly — language with syntax and that complex store of non-genetic information we call culture. However, in the last several centuries we’ve increasingly been using our relatively newly acquired power, especially our culturally evolved technologies, to deplete the natural capital of Earth — in particular its deep, rich agricultural soils, its groundwater stored during ice ages, and its biodiversity — as if there were no tomorrow.

The point, all too often ignored, is that this trend is being driven in large part by a combination of population growth and increasing per capita consumption, and it cannot be long continued without risking a collapse of our now-global civilization.

The main point of the article is that we, as a global civilization, need to have open discussion about population growth and its inevitable impact on Earth’s ecosystem. It points out several things that we have done wrong (such as building cities that pave over the most fertile land), how our thinking drives us to continue doing wrong (such as our reliance on consumption to drive the economy), and suggests that it might still be possible for us to save ourselves if we change. But if we fail to adapt our behavior then we will fall prey to the underlying homeostatic principles that govern ecosystems.

Sadly, the human animal is terrible at intentional change. That is, identifying some undesired truth about themselves and then changing their behavior, perspective, and mind. Of the people I know best, there are only a few that are any good at this and they seem to approach it from a religious angle. Given that their religions explicitly encourage population growth it seems unlikely that they would identify with the goals outlined by the authors of this article. And from a human perspective, imposing limits on childbirth goes against what evolution has distilled in us. The powerful emotional pain associated with being unable to give birth tears partners apart. Just imagine what it would do to a government.

So what can we do? Nuclear power seems like a better option than petroleum, but clearly it has its own limitations. Solar and other forms of power may help, but power isn’t our only issue. Maybe we need to farm off-planet and import food from space. Or if we’re going in that direction, perhaps we should just accept that we are the alien invaders described commonly in science fiction. We should spread into space, find suitable environments and/or seek to use terraforming technology. Hell, maybe we could find other alien species and eat them.

At my age, given the state of today’s medical technology, I might just be alive as the Earth reaches its limit. I’m curious (excited even) to see whether we can evolve intentionally, whether we become an extra-terrestrial species, or whether we slide into the dystopian future that seems to loom ahead. Or maybe all of the above…

I appreciate a note James Hamilton recently posted entitled Flickr DB Architecture, in which he briefly (and succinctly) describes how Flickr scales their database back-end to support what I refer to as an Internet-scale website. He then goes on to provide a list of links to other notes and articles that describe how other well-known websites are architected for scale. Good stuff.

Via David Strom’s blog, I found this photo essay of labs at night. One of my favorite moments is walking into a dark lab, or closing up at the end of a long night… When I switch off the room’s lights and turn-around to close and lock the door, the shining LEDs of every color, flashing as packets flow, sometimes temporarily blinding me (Juniper’s blue LEDs on M-series anyone?), are always beautiful enough to surprise me and make me feel like there is still some mystery and magic in the technology I work with.