First of all I’d like to take a moment to welcome Russia to the modern world as they have acted as a completely typical and predictable regional state power (other Slavophils will recognize just how bizarre it is to attach those adjectives to anything Russian). There really is nothing out of the ordinary here, and in fact, in a grander sense, Russia is acting much more appropriately than the last time the United States engaged in serious regional power-flexing (I speak, of course, of the 1980s and Latin America). Russia saw instability in its region and moved in militarily, probably excessively. I think I’ve seen a similar play before with different actors… I can’t be sure though, that one might have been a comedy, it was a little far-fetched (I hope the reader picks up the reference here, but if not that is my fault and I’m not looking to get into it any further).

Secondly, I’d like to point out the hilarious irony here. Russia has taken military action claiming to defend the right of self-determinism in regions neighboring Russia. I’ll just provide some empty space to allow that to settle a bit.

So, Putin, remember Chechnya? Just another way that Russia has become more modern and typical. Ideals shifting unabashedly with circumstantial interests! Yay go modern nation-state! In previous epochs Russia has been an anomaly in that, while lead by awful men engaging in horrendous acts, Russia has typically had a sort of ideological zealotry it has stuck to, quite firmly. Not the case here, and if the rest of the world had a mirror it cleaned more often than once a century, it would probably applaud Russia for assuming more common tactics.

Moving on. Another point I’d like to make is that this conflict has really made clear for me the awful state of macro journalism in the US and Europe. I have not read one single article by a major news source that was not painfully un-inhibited by standards I would call essential to journalism. Some have chosen to be pro-Georgia, some pro-Russia, some even pro-US (what the hell?), but no one has relayed the facts and only the facts. This has caused me to have very little to say about the specific events that took place to cause this conflict. I simply don’t know! And I’m starting to think nobody else does either.

But what is really noteworthy here is just how un-noteworthy this conflict is turning out to be. Russia seems to have become a fairly typical international player and a regional power. Georgia may or may not have acted inappropriately but before we start name calling on Russia we should probably think about the fact that the man who almost certainly orchestrated some seriously illegal and awful regional power-flexing in Latin America during the Reagan years went on to serve as President and to produce in his offspring one of the worst Presidents in our nation’s history. Food for thought anyways…

A couple interesting trends in congressional Twittering is that I expected Democrats to be more on top of new web technology but Republicans outnumber them on Twitter (at least from the list above) pretty significantly. From a quick look Republicans also seem to be the most prolific twitterers (discounting feeds that appear to be done by staffers). It also seems that Twitter has brought Democrats and Republicans together on some issues. Basically Culberson and a Democrat ally, Rep. Tim Ryan, want to overhaul rules regulating correspondence from representatives. The current rules are somewhat archaic and are based on the findings of the Franking Commission which was set up to regulate how postal fee allotments could be used by congressmen. The rules forbid posting to any website that contains politicking or advertising (i.e. pretty much every website) in their “official capacity” and posts must include a disclaimer identifying the poster as a representative. The 140 character cap on Twitter prevents that. The rules also apply to blogs, youtube, and other social networking sites.

It is extremely interesting to see how congress keeps up with technology in their personal lives. It is extremelty interesting to see folks like Rep. Culberson interacting quite directly with constituents (and other citizens whether they agree or not).

For example (excerpts put together from twitter feeds):

@johnculberson 1st back up your tax assertion 2nd actually? IMO market can drive it IF we do it right & we’re not.

@jpippert I strongly support alternatives-but without taxing anyone else to pay for it. Let free market & tax credits drive it-but drill 1st

@johnculberson & drill here drill now: listen to T Boone Pickens & his mtg with Obama re dev. alternative energy. http://tinyurl.com/6lvayh

How is that for direct democracy?

UPDATE: There has been a briefing by the Pentagon which has video of the missile launch, the “kill,” and a brief analysis. The launch occurred on time with no delays due to weather (only 2-3 foot seas). It looks like the shoot down was successful and the hydrazine tank was, in fact, destroyed along with the satellite. The collision occurred at 153 nautical miles above the Earth (~283km).
UPDATEII: Also, what do you know… it looks like there is already amateur photography of the debris field and the hydrazine trail, courtesty of Rob in Maui, Hawaii.

As many of you may know the US military is planning on shooting down a rogue spy satellite in a decaying orbit. It is designated USA-193. The satellite failed immediately after launch and was reported by amateur satellite watchers to have a decaying orbit. The official reason for shooting down the satellite rather than allowing it to deorbit on its own is that the ~5000 pound satellite contains about 1000 pounds of frozen hydrazine propellant that could potentially deorbit into parts of North America. It has been confirmed that the USS Lake Erie, a Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser, will fire a modified SM-3 missile to intercept the satellite. This may occur sometime within a couple hours of this post, but it looks like weather might delay the shot. Despite assurances from the US, there has been wide speculation that the reason for shooting down the satellite is to test US anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities, specifically as a reaction to the unannounced test by the Chinese which destroyed a weather satellite dubbed FY-1C in early 2007.

The deployment of military weapons into space has been a matter of concern since the Cold War and the aptly named “Outer Space Treaty” has been ratified by 98 nations. The treaty specifically bans the deployment of weapons of mass destruction into space but does not make prohibitions against ASAT weapons. Both the US and China have tested ASAT technology using the “purposeful miss” method where a missile is fired with the intention of coming within a close distance of a satellite and recording the accuracy. But the last successful satellite “kill” was by the US in 1985 and the Chinese “kill” was after three probable prior attempts. Now the costs and benefits of having ASAT technology and testing it can be debated but the immediate concern is the debris created by such tests. The most significant difference between the planned US shoot down and the previous Chinese one is in the altitude of the satellites destroyed, which has a significant effect on the fate of the debris.

The company that has been tasked with doing simulations of the debris and their paths is Analytical Graphics, Inc. (AGI). They provide an enormous amount of analysis, modeling, and visualization software to the US military and NASA. They also have a lot of great visualizations that are available to the public. Specifically, they have made a bunch of press release and general interest material available about the US intercept of US 193 and the Chinese ASAT test. The biggest difference between the US and Chinese “kills” is going to be the fate of the debris. As this AGI simulation shows (sorry for the .wmv) the debris from the US “kill” will mostly degrade after only a few more orbits and are expected to only last a matter of days. This is because US 193 will be destroyed at ~250km in altitude. FY-1C was destroyed at ~650km which means its debris will not completely deorbit for literally hundreds of years. AGI has also done modeling of the Chinese “kill” and the resulting debris (see the above picture).

There is a cache of publicly available visualizations of the Chinese “kill” made by AGI here. The Chinese ASAT test is the largest orbital debris generating event in history and increased the amount of “trackable items” (larger than golf ball sized) in orbit by 22%. These debris are also going to be very long lasting considering the high altitude of the destroyed satellite. There is a simulation of the debris from this event here. (once again sorry for the .wmv) The difference in the two simulations is immediately obvious.

I would love to know more about the actual ability of people to model these type of events. Apparently we have the ability to detect objects the size of golf balls in orbit. The military is apparently planning on using sea based X-band radar to target and track the satellite and resulting debris. This radar can apparently detect the spin of a baseball from thousands of miles away (impressive eh?). The other really impressive part of this story is the ability of amateur satellite trackers to not only track but give pretty detailed information about classified US government (and I assume other nations as well) assets.

A month or so ago I was sitting around the Christmas tree at my home in Oregon with my parents, siblings and some extended family of the Beardsworth variety (David, Helen, Michael and Kathleen), who were in visiting Bend from Eugene. Michael is an avid technologist and brought up the then-current introduction of various “E-Book” reading devices. My personal feeling at the time was that these devices were utter crap. However, I didn’t have any particularly well codified intellectual framework for feeling this way, so as is often the case with things that come out of my mouth I rationalized my views on the fly, pulling from anything and everything at the top of my head. This neurological transport is often aided by the introduction of alcohol into my bloodstream, and this case was no exception. At some point during the conversation, I said something to this effect: “E-Books create a new problem where none exists”. This statement may seem at first glance to have no real value, but the point of my comment was to suggest that the consumption of penned books doesn’t suffer from a content consumption problem and that the physical property associated with reading has inherent value. I did, and still, feel this way. I have always loved books, even when they are nothing more than a set of reference documents sitting gathering dust on my shelf. I find reading developed literature and non-fiction in digital form to be somewhat atrocious (yes, I still print out every scientific article I read), and much prefer to have the book in my hands.

“E-Books create a new problem where none exists”. Interesting. It would suggest that there is no inherent value in the digital distribution of large bodies of work, and that the introduction of such a mechanism has major flaws. Certainly it does have major flaws. Digital property rights (on which I have strong feelings but will not discuss them here in any detail), digital distribution, content protection; These are all important topics the majority of which are not yet well developed in our country or in others. So is there some historical precedent on which to judge the value of a paradigm shift from real property distribution to that of digital distribution in something as fundamentally important to our society as literature? Eureka! Music! Let’s take a look.

Since the decline of 19th century classical romanticism and the introduction of the phonograph, the consumption of music by the body public has been inexorably tied to technology. Previously to the 20th century the only method for hearing music was to do one of two things: create music yourself, or go to a concert. Both of these have obvious value even still: the music in my ears right now is being created on real guitars by real people who are doing so for their own enjoyment, and concert-going has a long and uninterrupted tradition throughout all musical disciplines. The record was king in this time of musical upheaval. It may not have been the best system, but it was a decent solution. And music being as important as it is to millennia of civilized human beings, an incredible community was created around the idea of the ‘record’ and perhaps specifically the idea of a codified set of individual works which made up an ‘album’. Incredible. And for quite some time, the album remained king.

It can I think be reasonably argued that the movement of music into the digital realm was necessary and obvious. Even though music was distributed through the sale of a physical product through years past, it was still connected to some mechanism for its translation from the physical product into something that that could be consumed. Thus the art itself was preserved and its basic understanding by the consumer was no different regardless of the mechanism of retrieval. Now of course, it is easy to copy digital content and the idea of a digital work as physical property is horribly flawed, but this leads me down a discussion path to which I will not venture in this post. For sake of discussion I will lump the CD and the digital MP3 download into the same category as they both suffer from these problems. They are both digital content.

This new retrieval mechanism for musical art did, as its predecessor (the vinyl record), have a major impact on the object of artistic desire. Previously it was personal creation and concert-going, which then transitioned into consumption of a physical record or album. Albums themselves had obvious worth: they were the vehicle by which the art was transformed from an abstract encoding into something you and I could actually hear. Perhaps this is much in the same way that the art museum is the vehicle for the consumption of priceless works of visual art. But the introduction of digital content moved the ball into a whole new regime: the album is no longer king. There is no longer a physical vehicle through which music is consumed. None at all. And so what becomes of the album? It dies. It has been dying and will continue to do so. Songs are now sound bytes and albums are now just a collection of songs (An acquaintance of a friend once said to me “You know albums are just a bunch of songs right? You don’t have to get the whole album!” Yes I do, Mr. acquaintance, and you’re an idiot). Much of the music elite in this country and others will tell you that an album is much more than just a collection of songs and sound bytes. Guess what? They’re right. For now. But as has happened previously with any invention of a new content-delivery system, the previous structure that once stood so tall and proud as the be-all-end-all of musical desire will gradually wither away until it is a faint memory for most and an elite preoccupation for few. Perhaps I fit into that elite category; Music is one of the most important influences in my life and I still store all my music in album form (though digitally). I will continue to do so.

So what does this have to do with books and “E-Books” (I still die a little inside each time I hear that phrase, so I quote it every time). Let’s examine the content consumption mechanism of books with perhaps slightly less intent that for music, simply because the subject historically is far easier to understand. In the year 1440, goldsmith Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press. And we haven’t looked back since. The dominant form of literature (and non-fiction) consumption has been and continues to be the printed word. Printing presses have become more complex and more efficient and applied to huge range of content. Newspapers, books, magazines … there isn’t a point in listing them all. Any reader will certainly understand its significance. And, like the record of the 20th century’s effect on music, over the last near-600 years consumption of the printed word is the single most significant mechanism for which thought and information has been presented to the public. The community that has sprung up around the printed word perhaps isn’t even worth mentioning in the same light as that associated with the musical album only because it is so unbelievably significant that no blog post can ever attempt to do it any justice. It transcends volumes of possible discussion. The shear voracity with which the printed word is regarded in civilized society is no foreign concept to any even remotely educated person. Even I suffer from the “endless library” problem. I love to have books just because I love having books. There is something about a physical collection of printed knowledge that is almost mysterious. I can’t explain it, but I have no problem letting it exploit me. For the purposes of this discussion though, it is only necessary to understand that the book, the printed word, is the vehicle, and you and I are the train station.

“E-Books create a new problem where none exists”. What happens when we move the printed word into the digital age (let’s forget about digital rights and digital property for the time being)? Perhaps the best known example of this in current discussion around the world is the “newspaper problem”. I put it in quotes only because I have no idea what a person educated in the field would call this (though perhaps my father John could better define the problem, as he is a very successful and well-established newspaper editor). Other examples (books to “e-books”, magazines to “e-magazines”) are equally well discussed within this framework and my take on it will be as general as possible.

The musical album used to be the purchased content. Now we buy individual songs, and it could be well argued that this system isn’t working all too well (or at least the RIAA would have you believe that — they’re may be right through the lens of the “old” distribution system). In the realm of the printed word, the vehicle of consumption was the physical product. It was the book, the magazine, the newspaper. When you bought one of these items, you weren’t buying it for a specific sentence, phrase, paragraph, chapter or article. The purchase of such a physical item was in fact the transfer your confidence that the physical vehicle had inherent value (I’m overusing the word ‘physical’ here, but with good reason). And almost 600 years of experience tells me that in fact, we were right. The physical vehicle great value which greatly exceeded the collected worth of the individual printed words. I would argue that this is in fact true of the music album. Albums, as any elite music connoisseur will tell you, have a worth that far exceeds the sum of its parts. When you buy a book or magazine or newspaper, you are not only summing its parts; You are putting your faith in the creation of that work as an intellectual object that has inherent value. What an incredible concept.

So for me to read an article (or, because of digital content restrictions read the first two paragraphs of said article) in the Wall Street Journal titled “Publisher Tests Selling by the Chapter” brings to me great distress. Like the album became song snippets and cell phone ring tones, book chapters will no longer be available as a small but integral part of a consistent body of work, but rather as small, insignificant objects to be judged on their own merit. How absurd. (Warning: sentence fragment ahead) The idea that we will enter complacently into a new era where a collected work no longer has value. Ridiculous. I have consistently resisted the destruction of the musical album, and I will be damned if I won’t do the same for the printed word.

I am quite sure that the people responsible for this brand new marketing idea are simply understanding a general trend and following suit. But at what cost? What are we willing to sacrifice? The longstanding traditions of the printed world are one of the fundamental driving forces in our society. These traditions are arguably among the most important single concepts in this history of mankind. Certainly I am not suggesting that the introduction of digital literature and the segmentation of the printed word will destroy the intellectual precedents upon which we base our society. And I would argue that the length and significance of the history of the printed word will necessarily slow its conversion into a group of only intellectual snippets. I hope I die before this transition takes full force in the same way that the album has been destroyed. But maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe a month from now, it will be possible for you to buy and own rights to a digital copy of only “Leviticus” from the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament and the Torah.

What a sad day that will be.

—

A caveat: I am a huge open-access proponent and technologist. I spent the majority of my life dealing with technology in one way or another, whether that be how I think intellectual knowledge should be distributed or how to do a finite element calculation in a complex geometry where chaos in interfaces is important. This is my first attempt at a discussion of this problem, and my thoughts may not be totally clear. The major point of this post is to spur discussion. I want to talk about this with smart people, and if you think I’m horribly misguided, I want you to rip my ideas apart. I’m not kidding.

Kevin Kelley

is a Wired editor and runs the website Cool Tools (which is awesome… and seriously if the NYT mentions a contributor runs a website don’t you think they could link the name of the website to the actual website?)

He wants candidates to do something similar to Justin Kan and wire candidates for sound and video 24/7 to really get a look at what they are like.

Pros: Its interesting to see candidates behind the scenes and right now that usually does not happen unless a candidate is accidentally on camera when they think they are not.

Cons: No candidate would ever submit to this and if they did I would question their sanity. Its kind of creepy. With news coverage being what it is their lives are already most of the way to this.

Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry

are the founders of Tech President.

They want video questions from “the people” chosen by “the people” with untimed video responses by candidates and the ability to comment and debate associated with each video. With the ability for the people to grade each response.

Pros: It hits at the two-way nature of the internet. I would love to see what video questions would get voted up rather than picked by new editors. I like the idea of candidates being able to be called out for evading questions because that is the most annoying part of normal presidential debates.

Cons There is an enormous potential for this kind of system to be spammed and/or gamed. There is a thin line between the “wisdom of the crowd” and “mob rule.” If this turns into a digg.com of politics I would have to shoot someone. Also, “grading answers” is a little strange considering there is not necessarily an objective correct answer a candidate could give. It seems that it would end up just being arbitrary and based on too many conflicting factors.

David All

is the president of a Republican consulting firm that helps candidates develop new-media strategies.

He wants to have “community” involvement not just before and after a debate but during the debate. There would be a mechanism for viewers at home and on line to call in, text, click internet buttons, or whatever to indicate whether they thought a candidate evaded an answer. Then if a majority said there was evasion then the candidate would be re-asked.

Pros: I think this is my second favorite because it is the simplest and takes care of my number one annoyance. It doesn’t easily let mob rule happen and it would be fairly unobtrusive.

Cons: It could easily fall in to a state where everyone just votes yes and candidates get re-asked every question. You would have to play with the threshold required for a re-ask.

Tom Brokaw

is a special correspondent for NBC News and the former anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News.”

Mr. Brokaw comes up with a great idea that has nothing to do with “new media.” He basically wants to get the candidates drunk and have them answer questions over their cell phone or BlackBerry (what no iPhone?).

Pros: Drunk candidates.

Cons: While the idea of a drunk Hilary Clinton berating me over the phone seems intriguing I have no idea why this is new media related… this could have happened 10 years ago. Drunk candidates. Also Tom Brokaw came up with it.

Matt Bai

is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and the author of “The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics.” (I have read some good things about this book, even people that don’t agree with its overall message seem to think it has some good insight into intra-party politics. It has definitely been interpreted quite differently by different reviewers.)

Basically Bai wants to have a little IM window open that shows text that every candidate writes as each candidate speaks. This allows candidates to comment on whomever is speaking as they speak without interrupting. This is probably my other second favorite suggestion.

Pros: This could very easily be implemented and could add a certain amount of hilarity to the event. It would also give the candidates a real chance to use their claws. This would be best for the actual presidential debates after the primary I think. Also it might be the only time in history that presidential touch typing skills and mastery of l33t would be an important issue.

Cons: This has the potential to be pretty disruptive especially if one candidate was particularly hilarious. It could also be a little unserious for presidential debates.

Zephyr Teachout

is a law professor at Duke University who was the director of online organizing for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign

This is by far my favorite idea and shows a real understanding of how to wield “web 2.0″ principles usefully. He wants to have a day long debate marathon where each candidate pairs off against the others one-on-one. Then the videos are licensed in a way that allows remixing etc (I would prefer straight public domain, no restrictions). That way the discussion can continue at any number of levels uninhibited by the shortage of network TV time.

Pros: Having a single marathon day for debates would get people excited. The ability to watch each candidate square off against other individually seems much better than 1 minute canned speeches one after the other. The length of the day might wear down candidates a little and get them to open up a little. Also this is the most “web 2.0″ of the ideas. This way the data would be out there and then the machinery and people of the internet could just have at it.

Cons It seems that it would appeal to people who follow politics but might be a little too much for the casual observer (although the ability to cut and remix the video would mean highlight reels could be easily made). Also with that much verbiage in one day I would be afraid it would devolve into highlight reels of “gotcha moments” (although with their proliferation on the web you would end up with some good analysis and it would just be a matter of finding it). This would also be the most difficult to organize.

So those are the ideas.

I like Teachout’s idea the best and it could very easily be combined with the “live” ideas of Bai and All. Basically the real problem with the debates is that they have become staged, one time shots with canned answers and evasion of any kind of meaningful controversy. I really like the idea of one-on-one debates and making the footage available to the public without restriction. I would extend Teachout’s idea to include a central debate webpage with all the footage and pages for candidates to clarify, respond, and spin after the debate as well as a general forum for analysis with a Slashdot style moderation system for comments. The idea of a one day marathon is also intriguing in that it has the possibility of really engaging the general public and generating some excitement. This format also has room for expansion if it is successful. Imagine whittling down the candidates a little and having the top contenders from each party square off. It might be too much but it would give people an idea of how each candidate handles people that don’t generally agree with them on the big issues.

The “new media” or “web 2.0″ approach definitely has the ability to draw the candidates into meaningful debate and get them to say a few things that they actually mean. Teachout recognizes this in his idea,

The Internet doesn’t just enable cool avatars and the shorter form. It also allows the deeper form: cross-linked blog posts, extensive research, simultaneous screens and raw debate footage that anyone can scan online, at any time. New media are not constrained by the scarcity of TV network time.

Yet also recognizes the weakness in the “new media” approach. Which is the devolving of debate into digg-like “shouting matches” with nothing more substantive than rounded corners and AJAX. If done right you could get a Wikipedia if done wrong you get digg.

Any more ideas from the vdov community?