Effective Society (my research blog)

Tools and Intro to P2P Collaboration

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 06:31:00 +0000

OK, after researching, experimenting, and building, I can report on collaboration via P2P.

First, to restate the goal: I want to share family histories and other files, some with just my family and some with the whole world, and do it in a way that we all share the benefits as we each work on our own copies. Yes, I said "copies": everyone should be able to play with all their data, on their own machine, with whatever tools they choose. For more sample uses, see familyhistories.info.

Now, a single paragraph for this year in review: after failing to create a workable plugin for one P2P program, I found that all file sharing is not equal, but it's close enough... so it seemed a good idea to make something to cooperate with most file-sharing tools/models. Thus began P2P-Docs, a program to keep track of your file libraries as well as the other copies of similar content that other people might be working on. You point it to the files that others are sharing with you ("incoming") and the files that you are sharing with others ("outgoing"), and it will assist you in reviewing and reconciling changes as they get passed around. It's wrapped with a simple search program, mostly to make it attractive bait for my relatives to be able to search for stories in our shared family histories. So it feels good to have a deliverable as well as more instructions for actual use.

I've started inviting family and friends to share files. I hope to have some back-and-forth collaboration before RootsTech 2012. If you'd like to test out some sharing, contact me.

So... you can see there's a bunch of items that are "not done yet" in my project README. I want to make these tools and instructions more useful for transferring files. I'm most excited to give my peeps good tools to search through their information; I love the idea of organizing content by assigning semantics. It's meaningful work (ha!). But seriously... someday I assume our computers will parse through all our content and understand it completely enough that it can find everything for us... but even then, we determine what is interesting and important, and we'll apply these values as we search for answers and/or meaning in the electronic records being gathered. Anyway, if you're interested in any aspect of this, well, interest is what drives what I do, so let's talk. :-)

A Private Network of Data and Events (used to share family histories, and more)

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 05:28:00 +0000

I'm very excited about the future of sharing information. Now, there are many projects that help distribute and share your stuff, but there aren't too many that allow you to keep it all to yourself but also share it selectively if you want. I feel that nuance of private ownership is important: it may not seem like a big deal to let Facebook and Yahoo and Flickr host your data, until they shut down services or delete your account or send your info to the FBI. I've been motivated by this interview of Eben Moglen published by the P2P Foundation... it really opened my eyes to the possibilities if we were to take charge of our own data on our own machines.

So I'm trying to make my own private network, where my friends share my data and can get updates if they like.

The first use case is for family histories: I've started collecting histories of my ancestors, and I'm part of an organization with a large family database. Now, I've put up a search where someone can find histories for people in their own ancestry. The next step is to enable a text search through those histories, and also allow people to add other histories to the collection... but I've realized that, rather than build a central internet service where people go, I'd like to make it easy for people to have their own copies and use it all in their own private network. I plan to share history (or even personal) files such that friends will get updates easily, then allow for tagging the history files with genealogical identifiers so that people can pull the ones of interest... and maybe even just pull pieces of data, such as small bits of data that might be part of my own ancestral database.

Does this kind of stuff already exist? If so, please send me pointers. If not, this may deserve a name... maybe P2P with events.. P2P3. :-)

Here are some some other projects and people I'm watching closely:

anything about the "personal data store/locker"
Pull by David Siegel
VRM, information cards
Google's Data Liberation Front
Phil Windley, Doc Searls, Dave Winer
Diaspora (a distributed social network)
something Sam Curren is doing (dunno what yet)

...

(Wow. I started writing this to share some concrete ideas, and it just devolved into a general overview with no details; I even published that stuff above, forgetting my original intent.)

Here are my requirements:

Share files with selected people
Share groups of files with groups of people
Share between individuals without the need of any central server
Notify me about changes to files, and show me just those changes
Notify me about new files someone has added, and let me choose whether to add it to mine
Ideally: do the same for bits of information, such as ancestor data found in a history
Install easily on Windows, Mac, Linux

I don't envision this as a platform for all types of information; it will most likely be less convenient than Facebook and Google... but I hope to help this type of technology mature such that people find it easy and important to store some of their info this way.

So here's my somewhat-more-concrete plan:

Find some P2P program to leverage for sharing files (AllianceP2P looks interesting)
Build plugins or something that defines which files to share and with whom
Manage additions, eg. when a history file is added then my network will be notified of the addition
Manage updates, eg. when a blog file is updated then my network will be notified of the update and be able to review the change
Manage changes to linked data (and this part could be really fun), eg. have an ancestor database that notifies me when there's a change to the dataset (RDF?) in the histories in my ancestry while ignoring changes to branches that aren't in my line

Next step:

I can use AllianceP2P to define my own network of people and files to share. Use that as the transport to sync files, and write a local app to detect changes to files and allow me to see the updates.

I'd love to hear your impressions.

Financial Collapse: It's both Wall Street AND Main Street

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 17:47:00 +0000

Lawrence Lessig is promoting the film Inside Job. I'm glad; it looks like it'll be informative (and hopefully not just emotional).

However, Lawrence says, '... it is crazy—literally crazy—to point to "the losers" as the cause,' where "the losers" are everyday people being bailed out by government programs. No, it's not crazy: a large part of our financial mess is due to a culture of greed in America, one where people are looking for quick, high returns without looking at the underlying process. Stocks, securities, banks, and even government bonds all have some kind of risk. It is unreasonable (an unsustainable) for our society to expect to close their eyes and give their money without understanding the businesses. There is no guarantee of the future in any aspect of life, and there is definitely no way for everyone to get rich quick.

The only way to build a stable life is to work hard, be committed, and learn constantly.

OK, so not everyone who has lost is guilty. But it is the prevailing culture in America... or it has been of late. Let's hope we put that period behind us, rather than blaming some easily-identified targets and leaving it at that.

I'd love to have a local museum! But I'd rather it be voluntary.

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:59:00 +0000

A friend of mine just wrote encouraging me to participate in an event that will help raise money and awareness of a local museum. I asked if the museum would be built or supported with taxpare funds. They wrote back:

"For your information, it is mandated in the Bountiful City code that we, yes the people, we have a right and responsibility to record, archive, preserve, and disseminate the history of our community. It is not only proper that we use tax payer money for this purpose, but it is our duty and our heritage to let our children and grandchildren know where we came from and how we got here. All across America we have buildings and lands bought and paid for by tax dollars that tells of the sacrifices of each generation in making America what it is today. If you don't believe this, then don't take your children to a National Park, museum, National Cemetery, or monument, because all of these were and are funded by tax dollars."

My response:

"You are absolutely right: we have many, many buildings, museums, monuments, and lands that are funded with taxpayer money, and I agree that these add to our heritage.

"However, I think even you must admit that our government (especially at the federal level) has frequently spent our money on these things inappropriately. For the sake of one goal (eg. "building heritage"), they benefit the few at the cost of many, and they use government force to do beneficial things which weakens the efforts of those who do good work on a voluntary basis. We can build a much stronger, more resilient community through projects that accomplish these things without force.

"For example, the South Davis Recreational Center and the Rogers Memorial Theater are good examples of burdens that our local Davis county government(s) have imposed or might impose on taxpayers and local businesses, affecting either the free use of their income or the freedom to compete fairly for people's attention.

"Feel free to keep me in the loop. I would love to be part of any voluntary initiative that improves our community like this!"

FYI: I promised to contribute to the next local, voluntary project my friend brings to my attention. Hold me to that. :-) I can't promise that to everyone, but I'll appreciate knowing any of these you send my way!

Clever, Constructive Conversation (About Technology)

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:00:00 +0000

Come join us in an open-ended forum about technology. This is modelled after Phil Windley's CTO Breakfast. You can see the results of previous discussions here with my event reports.

The difference is the location: we'll do this at venues in Salt Lake City; historically, it's been at about 70th S and 13th E. You can count on bagels. (At least, you can at this location; someday we may do it in a cafeteria or restaurant, so be sure to watch the location and confirm whether food is provided or available for purchase.)

As for dates, here is the calendar and here is the iCal info. (For you real-time watchers, follow me on Twitter.)

If you're interested, you're invited. Cheers!

---

Motivation: amazing things happen when you get together with smart people who speak their minds freely! I've had a great time at Phil's CTO Breakfast events, where many intelligent and well-networked people sit and talk in an open forum about current events and interesting projects and even crazy ideas. In the same vein, the Kynetx conferences have been eye-opening (and mind-blowing), partly because smart people come but mostly because they encourage conversations; they even had 2 "unconference" sessions where the topics and conversations were run by attendees, chosen dynamically (15 minutes before they happened). The experience is always memorable.

I disagree that IP rights are essential.

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:12:00 +0000

I disagree that IP rights are essential to growth, at least if they mean strong IP laws like in the US, since those are more often simply used by large companies with lawyers to bully newcomers rather than really building value. Technology nowadays is allowing us to focus on services and reputation, making distribution cheap; to continue to control the ownership of ideas and their delivery is to undermine the foundation of sharing, which is the foundation of the industry addressed in this article.

As an example, technology is enabling artists to spread their art around the world and make money from performances and other more personal approaches. The RIAA fights this with lawyers, which is their right for existing contracts; however, they have yet to show that it affects their business, and the system has also hamstrung many legitimate, innovative uses due to the heavy-handed approaches supported by government force.

Microsoft spread NOT because of IPR but rather due to effective pricing. And today’s service-oriented networks need freedom of open access, not artificially restrictive “property” rights.

There may be a way to create a rational IP system, but needs to be much more narrow and focused than any system in use today.

Why is mandated health a bad thing?

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 05:14:00 +0000

A friend was telling me how they like this health care bill because the insurance companies "can no longer deny anyone with preexisting conditions insurance, something myself and multiple friends have had to deal with. In my eyes, it's completely unfair."

I'm confused... why is that unfair? It's saying we all have the right to force someone else to insure us no matter what our condition. Living is risky and it can be expensive. Government can pass a law for anything, but it doesn't automatically mean there's suddenly enough resources to cover everyone... unless it tries to simply print money, which has it's own set of consequences.

Let's imagine a politician suddenly says, "Everyone has a right to look good," and then passing a bill requiring everyone to go to salons, and requiring every salon to provide a basic cut to everyone who asks. By ignoring the actual needs of consumers and salons, we get imbalance in the stylist economy. Some clients will be happy that they get subsidized cuts; some clients will be overjoyed because a salon is forced to work with them; and some salons will even be happy because they'll give basic cuts at an effective price.

But we can see how the majority of clients as well as most salons will lose out in the long run. We get things like fewer great stylists because there are so many basic cuts required; less salon business innovation for the same reason; and customers who don't even want cuts must still spend time and money for something they don't want. Will we enjoy that society if we're the ones forced to cut people's hair and we cannot control our own business (how much to charge, who to accept as clients, etc)?

The economics of this (ie. forcing all companies to cover everyone or forcing people to buy insurance) skew the reality of supply and demand; in the end they create bigger booms and busts. So we'll be like a friend from New Zealand explained: everyone has basic insurance, but it takes a year to see a doctor... except for the super rich (and politicians) who can afford to pay extra (or get them into elite circles).

Actually, I believe many people would appreciate that kind of society.

I don't buy the "Buy American" motto.

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:41:00 +0000

I just got a note from a relative with a long article about buying American-made products first, and finishing with: "buy as many articles as possible that are made right here in the USA!"

I disagree.

I do agree with buying things locally first... and not just because of the money. When your community works together and trades together, not only do you support your local resources, you increase the bonds of trust and cooperation, both of which can help you in the future.

However, once you get outside your "community" (maybe 5-20 miles?), you might as well be dealing with another country. Unless they're someone you plan to do business with again, you're just dealing with another anonymous supplier, so you're not building any meaningful relationship. Any why not support workers in other countries? I love how Americans have helped build up communities and infrastructures in other countries just because they need the help... and the very best way to get aid to our brothers and sisters worldwide is to buy their goods, rewarding their work. (Now, many of these products actually help corrupt governments instead of communities, so you've got to be smart about buying internationally as well. Dunno how. It's all hard.)

So, no, I don't buy the "Buy American" motto.

PS: Note that when you're a business you do create long-term relationships with people located further away, so a business "community" may be much broader. But it's still about the relationships.

Let's stop Monsanto.

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:32:00 +0000

I am alarmed by the spread of genetically modified (GM) foods, especially by the Monsanto company.

For the record, I am all for freedom of choice, and I look forward to the creation of more "effective" and less expensive foods.

However, anyone involved with GM foods must accept the responsibility for its spread. Monsanto aggressively protects its patents and pursues anyone who might be growing it's product, which is fine unless they and their growers are allowing it to get out into other areas they don't control. Of course it's very difficult to protect other areas, especially with large borders on the edge of your crop, but that should be one of the costs of doing business with this type of product. It is unacceptable for growers to allow this patent-protected food to bleed into other farms which a company can then pursue and charge that someone is illegally using their patent. The rest of us should be allowed to be free from that threat of contamination.

It's not just a patent issue, either: we've seen how the spread of non-native plants and animals can devastate local ecosystems. If there aren't yet any civil lawsuits regarding this, I would help to establish this kind of law.

Monsanto and its leaders are not acting ethically. They have pursued a seed cleaner named Maurice Parr, charging that it's his responsibility to make sure all his clients respect Monsanto's rules. They say in their page about seed saving, "Mr. Parr can honor the patent by informing customers it is illegal to save Roundup Ready seed and requiring his customers certify their seed is not from a patented product and providing samples for testing." It is certainly not fair or right that they can require others to enforce some company's licensing rules; even if supported by law (which should be changed, starting with patent law), Monsanto is showing that they are not a good social citizen. It sure seems that they deserve to be dead last in the ethical rankings of 581 multinational corporations.

If you care, here are a couple of ways to learn more and take action:

Send your comments directly to the federal regulators on the recent issue. (The docket ID is APHIS-2007-0044.)
Add to this other petition site.
Write Monsanto. See the link on the bottom of this page. I'll be interested in their answer if they reply.

Doc Searls' talk about "The Intention Economy" at Kynetx 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:48:00 +0000

We're trapped into thinking that a "free market" means "your choice of captivity (vendor)".

Even with social media, each site is a silo. So how do we get to personal, and "prove that a free customer is more valuable than a captive one?"

VRM (vendor relationship management) is one approach for us consumers, the reciprocal of and complimentary to CRM.

manage our own health care data, eg. PHR (personal health records)
"personal RFP" for my personal needs
assert our own terms of service
"Have governance of and by - and not just for - the people"

Take a look at Public Radio Player, where the VRM "CD" logo gives their VRM compliance level.

See projectvrm.org

Need a "4th-party": someone who helps the buyer relate to the sellers (and their 3rd-parties).

Quote of the day: "We're all climbing up the volcano of Google and allowing their free software to wash over us." There is currently an advertising bubble, because it's all guesswork; we need this infrastructure to empower customers, and Google will take a hit when it crashes.

(Doc recommends the online comic "Gaping Point.")

(BTW, Doc never answered the question: "How do we prove that a free customer is more valuable than a captive one?")

Following Your Passion is Better than Doing Good

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:32:00 +0000

"Do good."

"Make a difference."

"Make the world a better place."

You can't go long in today's America without receiving a plea to do good or hearing a claim that some group is making the world a better place. I love to hear that. As a matter of fact, my next career step will be something that more directly impacts people's lives for the better. I expect to spend my full time doing something even more directly constructive (in my mind) than what I'm doing.

However, I feel that "doing good" is not the best end-goal. Nope. Sorry.

Sure, whatever we do should have a productive purpose. But, for example, being good isn't always enough to motivate us; in fact, I've found (after years of looking) that there are actually very few philanthropic projects that inspire me. In addition , I feel that it's important to preach what I practice, and it is not practical advice (nor good for society) to tell everyone to spend full time in charity.

So I say: follow your passion!

It may not align with what you've done before. Who cares?

It may not meet the approval of others. Who cares?

It may not make much money. Is that really more important to you?

It may be something destructive. OK, you got me. Find a different passion.

It may not be possible right now due to current commitments. Don't give up your dream: you'll be rewarded as you work toward your passion...

When I was finishing my bachelor's degree, I'd done some job interviews and had been offered a position with IBM. That was fine, but what I really wanted was to go to graduate school and go as far as I could with computer science and maybe even teach it. It seemed almost a fantasy, and part of me thought I should be practical and go with the job. I went with graduate school, stayed poor a while longer, and I've never been happier. I think even Lynnette would agree that it turned out to be a good decision. I believe it's turned out so well because that was my passion at the time.

My desires have changed, and I'm currently considering my next step in my "career" (meaning the way I spend my working hours). I have some ideas and I've done some small things that match my new-found passions. I'm not yet able to spend my full time on it, and I suspect most people are in the same boat. But I'm getting to know myself better and I'm finding things that may make it all possible.

So it's already been worth the effort. And I'm not giving up.

As great as it is to do charitable work, I believe the world will be better served if we all focus first on our greatest passions, because those passions are the things that bring the most joy to our lives. Some might say that the world would be a terrible place if we all did that; I would say that they are misconstruing the idea of true passion. If we're all brutally honest with ourselves and those around us, we'll find that by pursuing our greatest passions (while keeping the long-term point-of-view) we will arrive at the best possible world.

Good luck to us all!

---

Lately, I've been seeing some messages emerge from other sources that emphasize passion over "doing good".

The Boys And Girls Clubs of America put up a billboard that had the word "Passion" on it. It pointed here: http://begreatamerica.org/sheen (Click on Martin Sheen to see more details.)

The Utah Dairy Council has put the following phrase on billboards, next to a picture of farmers and their farms:

Our earth
Our product
My passion

Of course, there are many who have written about following their passion. Two specific writings have stood out to me recently. One is by Fred Brooks, a computer scientist quoted frequently when it comes to project management:

"To only a fraction of the human race does God give the privilege of earning one’s bread doing what one would have gladly pursued free, for passion. I am very thankful." - The Mythical Man Month, p. 291

Finally, I've been following the progress of Phil Windley, my PhD advisor, as he's been starting a new company. I thought there was one post where he explained his reasons for being involved in another startup, but I couldn't find one and I'm starting to think that I've gathered his enthusiasm from multiple posts over time. For example, in 2007 he says how you can impress people when you "express the level of your commitment"; in 2008 he says that this is what he's "passionate" about.

Police earning revenue from tickets write more when they need the money

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:13:00 +0000

I would guess that we in America have the least corrupt police forces in the world. I'll even bet that there is not much overt corruption when this situation happens. But when the incentives are there, there will be pressures (maybe even unconscious ones) that bring out an unjust situation. Heck, maybe this means of revenue is the least-bad of all the funding options for police. But let's not ever forget that bad things will happen whenever the incentive exists, no matter how good the institution.

Here is a summary with a news video. And here are some of the articles themselves: "Are Traffic Tickets Countercyclical?" (summary, with a PDF download link) and "Red Ink in the Rearview Mirror: Local Fiscal Conditions and the Issuance of Traffic Tickets" (PDF).

Use Cases for Genealogical Semantic Data

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:20:00 +0000

I'm involved with the Thomas Tolman Family Organization (focused on genealogy work and family histories), and there's a discussion going on in the FamilySearch developer network about the potential utility of semantic data along with the genealogical data. I wrote the following examples of ways this could be beneficial to us. (I'm including it in this blog because these ideas touch on future projects that would give extra meaning to people as they do family history research.)

The source and/or genealogist who submitted the data has an impact on how trustworthy the data is. This is especially important since FamilySearch contains competing data; there are many places where existing FamilySearch data is not correct for our family. Naturally, there are genealogy researchers whom I trust more so I would prefer to see their datasets. Also, we'll tend to trust that data which has the largest number of references (and some references are more trustworthy than others), so that may be a criteria for what data I want to search through. Even though we're not actively working on integrating with FamilySearch right now, it seems that this issue comes up every month in our executive meeting.
When doing genealogy research, the source locations and/or genealogists can be good information to correlate. After our president came back from a trip to Boston, he heard about a source site that he was near and could have visited, but he didn't know about it at the time; our genealogist spends time contacting people in America and Europe besides hours in libraries locally, and it would be nice for her to be able to see what other lines she could extend by asking a few more questions at the same source; we maintain old documents and we just learned of some old journals that were donated to a library because the person didn't know there was a family organization, and he is now making extra effort to either recover them for us or get us copies. These are cases where we would benefit from tools combing through the meta-data, much of which is now simply contained in notes. This could even be the beginning of another social network, where genealogists might find, collaborate, and even rank the dependability of other genealogists. :-)
This one may not apply directly to genealogical data: my interest is in the personal histories, and allowing people to find histories for their ancestors and search for (and tag?) the things that are meaningful to them. These free-form documents will benefit a lot from semantic tags, allowing people to find correlations with concurrent historical events, with other families, and maybe even with other living individuals with the same interests.

Help Audit The Fed

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:30:00 +0000

There are currently bills in both the House and the Senate to audit the Federal Reserve. It should work transparently, seeing as how it controls our money supply. I hope you support this idea. If so, please take the next 5 minutes and call your congress-people (or call the Congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121) and ask them to support this legislation and maybe even co-sponsor it.

The Federal Reserve has absolute control over our money supply. Whether or not it's good to have them as a central bank, there is no reason that they should be working in secret. (In fact, not too long ago they stopped publishing one of the measurements of our money supply, one which has been accounting for an increasing share of the total.)

There's also a petition you can fill out, which will be passed along. But your quick phone call will do even more to help.

And spread the word.

Peer-to-Peer Lending: an awesome idea being strangled by federal overreach

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:52:00 +0000

Yesterday I revisited one of my favorite examples of internet technology tackling important social issues: Prosper.com, who brings lenders and borrowers together. It's exciting because this is my favorite application of the internet; it brings people face-to-face with one another, and shares personal successes and failures. And besides the rewards of helping one another individually, it is a remarkable social invention that will allow for more and more transparency as we work with one another.

Unfortunately, I was surprised to find the following notice:

"We are not accepting new lender registrations or new commitments from existing lenders at this time."

Sure enough, securities regulators have found that their business must be registered and monitored. I'm extremely sad. Jim Bruene from NetBanker.com has already explained why this type of thing is bad, including more examples of how this really puts a damper on innovation. I, for one, hunger for the opportunity to work with individuals rather than institutions, and I'm willing to accept the risk (and rewards) involved. How did my national government get the power to forbid this kind of trade? Actually, Jim says that our federal legislators didn't directly cause this problem, but rather the SEC decided to classify these loans such that they're in trouble. This is typical; if Congress can delegate the power

I'm not good at tirades, so I'll end here. I'm just very, very sad that this is going on, and getting worse.

"Making Money While Going Green"

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:41:00 +0000

I've just listened to a podcast by Gary Hirshberg, founder of the environmentally-friendly yogurt producer Stonyfield Farms; this business is profitable while being committed to measurable, sustainable production, and this talk is remarkable because he is so enthusiastic and he gives so many details, both facts about how they run their business and stories about making such an endeavor successful. His book looks as interesting and informative as this talk, so I've got to get a copy!

Here are the facts I'd like to remember:

Before Stonyfield he worked with New Alchemy, where he found we could support 10 people on 1/10 of an acre using solar power and no fossil fuels. (3:30 into podcast)
Yoplait is about 14% net revenue bottom-line and Stonyfield is about 13%, but their gross margins are 10 points behind. (I don't know what those mean; must learn.) (6:45 into podcast)
They have their own climate footprint methodology, and they look through their P&L to improve it and save money.
For our sewage, we typically "dilute with enough water, add oxygen, [and] agitate"; they built an "anaerobic "facility to handle their waste and generate energy and they'll have a net payback of $4-5 million. (11:00 into podcast)
With smarter sugar production, they have better soil, water quality, yields, worker health, and wildlife in the area, and now the cost of their sugar is equal to conventional sugar. (13:50 into podcast)
Discussed how UPS saved $10 million (per year?) by only making right turns in their trucks.
Great stories about advertising and building the business: building loyalty by adopting out cows and thanking and giving out free samples to commuters (18:00-21:00 into podcast)
They have their own scoring, where they're only 63% but trying to do better... like IBM who is at 70%. (I'm guessing this is the Climate Counts campaign.) (26:40 into podcast)
At birth, we have 287 chemicals in our blood, 188 of which are (or may be) carcinogenic.

Celebrating the two-month anniversary of our financial sector bailout with a status report

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:00:00 +0000

Today is the two-month anniversary of the huge emergency bailout that was absolutely critical to avoid imminent catastrophe. However, they have not even used half of it yet, and they have spent the first half mostly in places other than where promised. (And when I say "where promised", I mean "where the law directs".)

As much as I am disappointed by widespread support for government overreach, it is good to hear widespread applause when Cody Willard pointed out the flaws in this whole bailout mess. The best and most informative part is the 2 minutes from 3:30-5:30: "Last weekend we we sent more money to Citigroup, one company, than the entire budget for food stamps in this country every year." I've never heard of Cody before today, but it looks like he is worth watching: in a recent post, he points out how our current government "destroys the rule of law". Very true. And I hope that understanding is spreading.

This ad doesn't convince me that planned communities work.

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:06:00 +0000

This article includes a CDC video ad trying to make the case for planned communities. There's just one funny thing that's missing: the people. In any video snippet, there were never more than 4 people enjoying the benefits of these planned areas, and usually there were fewer. This is the whole problem with planned communities: what good are they if people don't use them because they prefer the benefits of purchasing houses in non-planned areas? (There's another article on the topic the next day, but it is made of analysis and references to analysis without any real examples of approaches that actually work.)

I believe there are ways to achieve what you're discussing, and I'd like to hear more, but you'll have to have a different approach than the typical urban planner mandates to get us there. There are bountiful studies and reasons why the traditional government approach doesn't work, so please overcome those obstacles in future attempts to convince me.

Effective Teaching

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:05:00 +0000

In this talk, Benjamin Zander doesn't just lecture about the abundance in life, he demonstrates it by teaching a young musician as we all watch. What a great example!

Learn lessons from the pirates

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 21:09:00 +0000

Matt Mason talks about piracy, how it's always going to be with us, and the best approach for everyone is to deal with it creatively and constructively. (It actually reminds me of the story about attitude heard in another talk: two shoe salesmen go to Africa, and the first despairs because nobody wears shoes while the second rejoices at the opportunity!)

He talks about how he was a "pirate DJ" in London, which sounds interesting, but then he discusses how things often start in the pirate network and then move to mainstream. When the "legal" players start to address the problems that create piracy, they become truly powerful and profitable. He uses "Heroes" as a great example of this: they're the most pirated show on the web, but they've made over $50 million on their alternative revenue streams. He also points to a pharmaceutical company Novartis who learned to do something about their piracy problems in Thailand by offering products for free. You cannot buy the kind of goodwill that comes from that type of positive action.

We really are in an age of abundance (at least in my industry), and the long-term successes will be those who learn to build organizational models that share that abundance rather than restrict it.

"Breaking the Cycle of Poverty-Related Illness"

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 15:03:00 +0000

Vera Cordeiro Rio tells her story about working for the poorest people whose children are hospitalized repeatedly. She started working without money so she sold her stuff and begged for money from friends, and now she is running a large organization Renascer that even has a profit-making arm Fish Hook. One quote about the non-profit/profit combination:

"Nowadays, if you want to change the world, a non-profit has to have a branch of profit. And also the profit companies, they have to have a branch of [social work]."

support for First Amendment is poor (but improving)

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:43:00 +0000

The First Amendment Center published their 2008 survey results about American's knowledge and opinions of the First Amendment.

Beware: they are frightening! People have very little knowledge of their freedoms, but worse of all they are willing to give up many of them. Thankfully, if you look at the numbers for the past few years, the trend seems to be improving (from my 2-minute scan of the data), though the improvement is very slight. This is not very encouraging news.

(Thanks to the Deseret News for their op-ed warning about American's attitudes.)

10-month blog anniversary!

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 13:50:00 +0000

Well, it's now 10 months since I've started writing online, and it's been enjoyable to learn what I want to do as I do it. At this point, I am recommitting myself to something I think I've forgotten: I am trying to publicize all the projects and stories that are making this world a better place, emphasizing those that encourage free association and also identifying where unlimited government is getting in our way. I want to make effective analyses, but I also want to point out every good project I hear. One improvement I'm going to try: I'm going to bookmark ALL the good projects I see, since del.icio.us is still improving and they have a great interface for searching through your tage; then I'll reference my blog entries from there so I can find the ones that are interesting enough to comment about.

Onward and upward!

Hey, Feds: solve our problems!

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:56:00 +0000

I am more and more disappointed in our federal governmental situation, but only partly because federal politicians seem to think they need to avoid every crisis and solve every problem in society: I see more and more evidence like this "Presidential Challenge" that shows how many people really believe our national government could and should impose it's will to try and fix every injustice. (Disclaimer: the one about bin-Laden really is a valid project.)

All I can do is sigh.

untrustworthiness

noreply@blogger.com (Trent Larson) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:38:00 +0000

Two news items today showing why the state is not to be trusted:

I never understand why people feel it helps to pass bills with extra safeguards or to set up regulations "the right" way; with the national state as large and unwieldy as it is, there's no way to ensure that things will be done even as promised in writing.