I often have random ideas and usually let them pass by, either because “someone else must have thought of it already,” or I’m too rushed, or perhaps I feel a little embarrassed by being different and having weird ideas. And then there’s that thought at the back of the mind that lurks in every capitalist’s mind: “but if I keep it a secret, I can profit from it and prevent all those other people from getting rich from my ingenuity.” But no more—it’s time to start documenting these things. The world always needs good ideas, and good ideas just start with plain old ideas.

Today, my coworker Paul and I were talking about the fragility of the internet. If you’ve ever been a network administrator, you can probably sympathize with me if I say that making things work and stay working can be troublesome. But the internet as a whole is pretty good these days, considering that it’s a man-made invention.

But just a few weeks ago, a power outage in San Francisco caused an internet black-out for several popular social networking sites. The rumor was that some drunk employee arrived at work at a hosting company and started unplugging servers at random. It seems the rumor was unsubstantiated, but still, the possibility remains that someone could do such a thing. The main thing keeping the internet together is the intense interest that we as a global community have in keeping it together—especially companies that have money and want to make more.

What would happen if that common interest waned, however? What will our society be like 100 years from now, or 500? Will we still have an internet?

Maybe. But if we could make global communication a more natural state, imagine how that would protect this critical infrastructure. What if, for example, we could use trees to communicate data, in similar fashion to the forests of Narnia? I suppose we would have to genetically alter a tree and start planting it around the world. Alas, the ability to create such a thing is beyond most of us—but wouldn’t it be a remarkable gift to future civilizations to have a communication network built in, as a natural state of the earth?

Everyone should cheer for California Secretary of State Debra Bowen and the geek squad that worked with her to find out just what security vulnerabilities existed in the 5 brands of electronic voting machines used in California.

Bowen announced that Diebold and Sequoia voting machines would not be used with the exception of people with disabilities, and that the other brands would be re-certified when certain security requirements were met.

It’s been known for some time now that these electronic voting machines are exceptionally vulnerable to hackers. That the companies who make these machines would go on record to say that “Electronic voting systems have never been successfully tampered with in an actual election” is naive at best, and seems to imply that if they have never been tampered with then they could never possibly be tampered with in the future. I’m glad that the California Secretary of State is wiser than that.

As a software engineer and computer scientist, I feel that I am in a special position to know just how easy it is to leave loopholes or backdoors in a product. There is very little stopping me, except for my own sense of honesty and perhaps a small possibility that I could potentially be caught for such mischief. But when it comes to something as sensitive as the basis of our freedom and liberty, I expect a much higher level of scrutiny on the companies and individuals who could undermine it.

The saying, “He who votes decides nothing; he who counts the votes decides everything” is attributed to Joseph Stalin. I hope this new standard of scrutiny is extended beyond the state of California.

Learning the fundamentals of economics has become a kind of a hobby, rewarded by a few glimpses here and there into the netherworld of the current hedge fund crisis and related incidents. It can be a little confusing, for sure. But after reading a fascinating article by Scott Thill, “The Crash of 1929: Are We on the Verge of a Repeat?” the light of understanding has illuminated my mind. I can finally put my finger on the economic worry at the back of my mind. I’ll call it “Fractional Reserve Brokeraging.”

Banking was invented about 500 years ago as a way of keeping money safe, providing easier transfer of ownership of real money such as gold and silver through certificates, and of course as a way of creating capital for investment.

For the few people who owned banks, things really got interesting with the discovery and invention of Fractional Reserve Banking. Bankers knew that not everyone needed all of their gold all of the time—in fact, only a fraction of the clients needed a fraction of their deposits at any given moment. Using this knowledge, bankers would extend “credit” to people by essentially offering them money out of thin air and requiring that they pay back the loan in real gold. It was a brilliant idea that helped fund many ventures, made bankers into international power brokers, and generally helped Great Britain and other European powers expand their empires. (For a fascinating historical documentary on the origin of money, banking, and its influence in wars and politics, see The Money Masters.)

But the general level of trust in the bank can rise and fall with current events, and if it falls far enough we know there can be a run on the bank. In that situation, it’s possible that if enough people want to withdraw their deposits at the same time (trade their paper money for real commodity money such as gold or silver), the bank will suddenly be caught without its cover—and without enough actual assets to be withdrawn, the result is bankruptcy. The bank is discredited and a lot of people lose their savings.

In modern investment practices, there is a kind of activity that is strangely similar to this “fractional reserve banking” that allows money to be created out of thin air. It’s called a “naked short”. Essentially, a naked short is an IOU (”I Owe You”) on a stock. Rather than paying money and getting a share in a company, you can pay money (through a broker) and get an “IOU” for that share instead. Apparently, this has permitted a huge sum of money to be created and floated through the markets via hedge funds. It’s essentially the same as a bank making a bet that only a certain fraction of gold will need to be in circulation, and so it can print more paper money than it actually has in gold reserves. Likewise, naked shorts allow brokers and investors to create more stocks than actually exist.

When traders realize that an IOU is not precisely the same thing as a share, the game turns into musical chairs and we wait to see who’s sitting in a chair when the music stops. Of the people who need chairs, only a fraction will be seated.

Rather than blog about each individually, I thought I’d write a summary of things in the news and on my mind lately.

• No jobs for US citizens without Homeland Security Approval
  If I understand the implication of this recently passed immigration bill, it seems that immigration reform, too, has been turned into a vehicle for reducing civil liberties. If neither the White House Republicans nor the Congressional Democrats are for the rights of people, where should we turn?
• A 2nd Interview with Ron Paul on Real Time (Bill Maher)
  It seems that Bill has had a change of heart since the first interview, explaining that after the Republican presidential debate, he realized “this is a person I really want to talk to a lot more.”
• Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps
  A Canadian news service reported a year ago (as have several others) that a Halliburton subsidiary was awarded a $385 million contract to build detention facilities for “an emergency influx of immigrants”. Civil libertarians like me, of course, worry that this is part of a larger and more nefarious plan.
• Why Bush Hasn’t Been Impeached (Salon Magazine)
  This is an excellent article that opened my eyes to the social and personal aspects of the impeachment process that we each have to go through—for example, it wasn’t easy for me at first to accept that Bush was not the hero my faith-based eyes had seen in him after September 2001.
• New Presidential Directive Gives Bush Near-Dictatorial Powers in Case of Emergency
  Another piece is in place, if you’ve been following the trend. This one gives the president power over all three branches of government in the case of an emergency (note that the definition of emergency is quite liberally described).
• And in a more personal line of thought, I’ve been watching prices go up on just about everything lately. Gas is the obvious one, but I bought a sealed-gel battery (about 40 lbs) the other day and the small business owner I talked with there told me the price would be going up by about 15% next week. He cited rising costs in commodities such as lead and copper. I wonder though… is the cost increase across the board, or are we just seeing inflation? Is there a difference?

I’m sure there are several entrepreneurs among us, so here’s hoping this is helpful to each of you.

A friend of mine is putting together an opportunity to hear former VP of permission marketing at Yahoo, Seth Godin in Salt Lake City. Seth will be speaking at the Salt Palace in a couple of weeks on Thursday, May 24th.

If you’d like to learn about permission marketing and his recent book The Dip (”when to quit and when to stick”), this will be a great opportunity to hear from the man himself.

Admission is $50, which includes for free all 5 of Seth’s books.

There was a great debate between the Democratic presidential candidates a few days ago (Apr. 26th). Overall, I was quite impressed. There is intelligent conversation going on in democratic circles. Even though I’m more of a Libertarian, I have to hope that several of these candidates get more attention.

One of the first things I noticed was that everyone had a very clear anti-war platform. No one was for the war. That’s a good first step, I think. It seems that our current president has at least one merit—he’s definitely taught the next commander in chief what not to do.

As I took notes on the debate, I was keen to see who grabbed the crowd’s attention best. Biden was able to make everyone laugh when he countered the accusation, “some say you are too verbose. Have you changed?” with a simple “Yes.”

Former Senator Mike Gravel was a surprise candidate that drew a crowd. I resonated with his very direct and very powerful opposition (even anger!) at the war. He was definitely the most energetic of the bunch. He also drew laughter when the host asked why he had earlier made the statement that he was surprised he’d made it so far. To this, he replied:

You’re right–I made that statement. But that’s before I had a chance to stand with them a couple three times. It’s like going in to the Senate. the first time you get there, you’re all excited–my God, how did I ever get here? Then about six months later, you say, how the hell did the rest of them get here?

Gravel says he would make a 180 degree turn for America with regard to the war as his first item of business. Here is a video comprised only of Gravel’s (short) contributions to the debate at South Carolina State, as well as an interview with him afterward.

I like how Kucinich referred to himself as a “healer.” He’s right to point out that we need one. Maybe he’s the guy to do it—I don’t know. I certainly approve of his initiative to impeach Cheney, and I am entirely impressed that he voted against the war in the first place!

Chris Dodd seemed to be the Senator I agreed with least. He accepts lobbyist funds, is against assault weapons and seems to endorse more gun control.

Senator Clinton seemed kind of in the background to me. I didn’t really hear anything I was really for or against. Maybe she intended to be a neutral player?

Senator Edwards was more of the same to me.

I liked Governor Richards’ candor, but I didn’t feel a lot of strength coming from him.

I really liked Barack Obama’s comment that we need to “move away from divisive issues” and focus on areas where we agree. He cited prevention of teen pregnancy as an area where we can all put positive energy in to, rather than draining ourselves in the fight on government regulation of abortion.

Intelligent conversation and good moderation. I’m glad this wasn’t on Fox News channel.

Update: Apparently, CNN is barring Gravel from joining in the debate there, so here is a petition we can sign to encourage a fair and inclusive debate, specifically to encourage CNN to rethink this decision.

So I hate it when some new evidence confutes my assured perspective. But alas, learning is a never-ending endeavor, and I’m an avowed truth-seeker. So here’s a link from Nathan McDonald to a documentary called the Global Warming Swindle. There’s also a counter-documentary that I have yet to watch that claims it’s a scam. I haven’t reached a conclusion on this yet, but I wanted to bring awareness to both sides of the issue. (I’ve been very pro-green lately, a perspective I’m glad to have acquired from “An Inconvenient Truth”, and one I intend to keep simply because I appreciate and love the earth).

The video has some good points, however, regarding the lack of evidence for a CO2-caused global warming effect. It seems to match the data better if we look at it the other way around—that is, increases in CO2 have always followed increases in global warming.

There was a surprising point made in passing near the beginning of the documentary—that the politicized “green campaign” may actually be a way of keeping the rich nations rich and the poor nations poor. Once again, I haven’t reached a conclusion on this point either; however, I find it sad to see how much we’ve done to our environment in the name of progress and comfort, but even sadder to see how our fellow human beings in third-world countries have so little. I suppose that if they are forced to depend on imported “green” products from other countries, they will never be able to attain to the same level of industrialization as the West has.

I’d be curious to hear other perspectives if you’ve watched the documentary and have something to contribute. I know very little about the science behind climatology.

So there’s going to be a protest against having Dick Cheney speak at this year’s commemoration commencement tomorrow between 11:00 am and 1:00 pm at the BYU Provo campus. I’ll be attending and possibly some friends.

Apparently BYUs protest was highlighted on CNN news this morning—my history teacher noted today that it’s like a “canary in the coal mine” when the most conservative college within the most republican state protests against the vice president. That sounds newsworthy to me—so there’s a possibility we’ll have cameras there tomorrow.

The BYU Democrats have taken a role in promoting the event. They’ve asked that we:

• Say what we like, as long as it isn’t about the Church’s First Presidency.
• Wear a white shirt (not necessarily a tie, but that might be fun!)
• Bring picket signs and that sort of paraphernalia.

I wonder if you have any ideas with regard to point number 3 above. So far, I’ve thought of a couple of signs I might make:

“Darth Vader doesn’t belong among the Jedi Knights”

and

“Does BYU support the crook along with the office?”

If you wish you could attend but can’t, please feel free to brain storm with me until tomorrow morning.

See this blog from The Big Picture.

Update: Looks like the list has since changed… Mac OS upgrade is #40, Vista is #35 now.

I wrote earlier to let readers know about the availability of Libyan internet domains. There were a lot of open domains available at that time. There are still a good many to go, too. Taking on a $150 domain is a bit of a risk, however, so I hope you’ll consider the pros and cons before you act. I also hope that all of you who already took the plunge have had success.

A couple of weeks ago, I sold the “HO.LY” domain for $1,000 on ebay. While I don’t expect to get the same price for some of my other .ly domains, it’s been a valuable business experience as I’ve taken the “plunge” myself.

Some Thoughts on Domain Sales

Soon after my original post, someone accused me of being a bad person for snatching up the domains that I did and then re-selling them. I didn’t expect this reaction to be honest, although after some reflection, I can see why some people might be grumpy or upset. Perhaps it seems like easy and undeserved money when a domain sells above its registrar fee.

But grumpiness aside, the “mark-up” on ebay is profit taken for providing a service. It was actually a risk on my part to buy $750 worth of domains. I really didn’t know what they were worth—and neither did some of the appraisers I went to, for that matter. My service was to take a risk upon myself in order to find someone who would be happy to pay more than the $150 registrar fee for the domain. And as it turns out, someone in Florida was just the person. I’d like to think that without me, this fellow wouldn’t have been presented with the option of buying HO.LY and therefore may not have gotten the domain he wanted in the end.

I’ll continue to experiment with domain sales and other possibly profitable ventures. I’ll post about anything that comes up. And let me know if you have any ideas too, eh?