22 Feb 2005
Free Mojtaba and Arash Day

Mojtaba and Arash are two Iranian bloggers currently incarcerated by the Iranian government. The Committee to Protect Bloggers has asked the blogosphere to show support for them today, and to draw the attention of governments around the world to the fact that they are not forgotten, and that we stand together with them for freedom of expression.

Update: The BBC noticed.

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Computer Cracks 5x5 Go

Indeed this is an accomplishment: mathematically it makes Deep Blue look like a computer kindergarten exercise. Go is significantly more complex than chess, and this game (albeit on a tiny board) was "solved", not just programmed to beat a human player.

The American Go Association is reporting that Go for the 5x5 board has been solved by the computer program MIGOS, reports the program's creator, Erik Van Der Werk, a professor at the University of Maastricht in Holland. At about a quarter of the full-board version, 5x5 go is minuscule, similar in scale to "solving" 2X2 chess. The fact that a programmer would even consider this a noteworthy challenge is itself a remarkable testament to the game's complexity. Van Der Werk's approach is described in detail in an article at the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NOSR).

(link) [Slashdot]

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

States' Private Pensions Make a Weak Showing

Are we as a society incapable of learning from experience?

... when Nebraska's state and county workers were given do-it-yourself accounts, they made so many investment errors that they ended up making less than colleagues with fixed-benefit pensions — and less than what analysts have said is needed for old age. Their poor performance led the Nebraska Legislature two years ago to junk the accounts for new employees.

Managing an investment account takes a lot of skill and, more importantly, discipline. That's a commodity in short supply in today's America, where we are constantly bombarded with inducements to "spend now".

But Bush is, in a sense, right in his assessment of the Social Security system being "broken". As designed, it failed to take into account the effect of falling birthrates and rising life expectancy - rendering it little more than a Ponzi scheme today.

Over the years, Congress has refused to raise Social Security taxes to the level needed to fund it: that's been a n effort led mostly by Republicans, who don't want to raise taxes ever. The Democrats, for their part, have been eager to add new spending to the original system, mostly in the form of disability and educational payments. The effect has been a conspiracy to bankrupt the system.

Bush is off base, however, as to the immediate "crisis" - best estimates are that the system won't collapse for another 40 years or so. And I think he may be discovering why folks call the system the "third rail" of American politics (named after the electrically conductive track in a subway system - touch it and die).

I know how his plan would effect us: between us we have better than $350,000 "invested" in Social Security - we'd both have to live to be 85 before we got all of that back, assuming we don't contribute any more. Since I'm not contributing much right now, I'd have little or nothing to put into any private account scheme - but the shortfall caused by others in the system moving to private accounts would have to be made up somewhere, otherwise my mom would find her benefits reduced. That shortfall can only be recouped by raising general revenue taxes - which I would end up paying, one way or another.

So from my perspective, moving to a partially private system now is distinctly flawed. But I'd still be willing to go along with it, if I thought it would fix the system for my grandchildren. And that's where we should look at states that have tried this and learn from their mistakes. It doesn't seem to fix anything.

Nice try, Dubya.

Los Angeles Times - WASHINGTON — President Bush believes Americans are so eager to join the "ownership society" that, given a chance, two-thirds of those eligible would divert funds from Social Security into the personal investment accounts he proposes.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Feathers in PCs No Birdbrain Idea

What an interesting idea! Right now most of our offal goes to the compost pile, but to be able to sell it .... hmmmm.

Chickens make a tasty meal, sure, but did you know that their feathers may one day be used in computers? Researchers are experimenting with recycling clucker coverings into circuit boards. By Katie Dean.

(link) [Wired News]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link