The Analog Counter Revolution

This blog is back from the dead

2006-09-28T13:57:00.000-07:00

I have been busy, as I am sure you have. Just as good I didn't write anything for a while as you wouldn't have read it anyway.

US apology to Axis of Good, Canada not amused

2005-04-01T23:15:00.000-08:00

Caving it to the demand to apology for the Outpost of tyranny comment, Washington issued the following statement;

"The comment was taken out of context, we were referring to Canada"

In addition to this Washington has had to explain another controversial remark.

"Look, Mr President you misunderstood, evil isn't bad - it's good. Like as in 'that's an evil looking bike you have there Mr Kim Jong Il'. We were complimenting you."

Axis of Evil (West) vs Axis of Evil (East)

2005-03-30T23:39:00.000-08:00

What would happen if Korea picked a fight with Iran? Well, they sort of did just that at a soccer game. During the recent FIFA Worldcup 2006 qualifier serious crowd trouble broke out in the North Korean stadium. The partisan spectators pelted the visiting Iranians with bottles seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are both members of Darth Vader's Evil Team.

Here is what happens when these heavyweights of international diplomacy of slugs it out in three spectacular events.

1. Round one - Soccer:

Iran has a pretty good squad, the current team have some reasonably well known players such as Ali Daei who was (is?) a prominent player in the Bundesliga. They only just missed out on FIFA 2002 after losing a playoff against Ireland. In France '98 Iran beat Team USA 2-1. Could this humiliating defeat have had an impact on foreign policy? Surely not.

North Korea had their moment of glory in 1966 when it took a Eusebio goal for Portugal to knock the plucky minnows out of the World Cup quarterfinal. Since then they have, as their country spent most of the time in isolated obscurity.

FIFA ranks Iran at number 20, a remarkable achievement - only one place behind heavy-hitters Germany. Korea DPR is ranked 91, just ahead of heavy-drinkers Scotland. Iran has consistently outperformed North Korea for the last decade.

On the field Iran's international experience made all the difference, when the Syrian (!) referee blew the final whistle Iran had beaten North Korea 2-0.

Rematch in Teheran 3rd June 2005.

1-0 Iran

Round two - National News Agencies

As my Farsi and Korean are rustier than a Paykan (see below in round 3), I will only comment on content from the English language version of events here.

The Korean Central News Agency is the state-run agency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It has branches in "some foreign countries". Doesn't say where, Yemen? Cuba? Haiti? Who knows.

The correspondent files this concise match report, managing to mention important facts such as the date, name of the stadium and teams as well as the score:

Football Match Held between DPRK and Iranian Teams
Pyongyang, March 30 (KCNA) -- A football match between the DPRK and Iranian teams took place at Kim Il Sung Stadium in Pyongyang Wednesday for the 18th World Cup Asian regional qualifier. The Iranian team won the match 2-0.

Apart from briefly mentioning the score of soccer games the site has gems of investigative journalism such as:

"Scientists Meet to Vow Their Loyalty"
"Booklet Praising Kim Jong Il Published in Italy"

IRNA is Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency. According to its own website "The organization functions as the mother source of information dissemination". It also aims to promote "the Islamic culture as far as possible and encountering the cultural onslaught of enemies of the Islamic Revolution."

The site is not all national propaganda as it carries AP and AFP content as well.

It gives a short but informative description of the soccer game as well as a brief description of the post game trouble.

"The angry Koreans rushed to Syrian referee Mohamed Kousa in the closing minutes for a controversial penalty."

2-0 Iran

Round three - Cars

What better way of understanding a nations psyche and engineering capacity than looking at the car industry?

There are 3,000 passenger cars in North Korea for a population of 23 million. All are said to belong to the government or top officials. Sun Myung Moon's Unification church could maybe try to launch their cars in the north, but that is as far as it is gets.

On the other hand Iran has in the past been the proud manufacturer of the Lada-looking Paykan. More recently they have, thanks to some help from the French (who else?) launched the ABS and double airbagged Samand. This japanese looking car is proving to be a hit in countries such as Russia, Senegal and Pakistan.

3-0 to Iran.

An impressive performance by the Axis of Evil (West), thoroughly proving to be a better country than Axis of Evil (East), or as the KNCA would have reported the event:

Comparison Held between DPRK and Iran
TheACR, March 30 (KCNA) -- A comparison between the DPRK and Iran took place at http://theacr.blogger.com Wednesday for the title of most prestigious evil country. Iran won the comparison 3-0.

Colegate and the scandal naminggate

2005-03-24T22:40:00.000-08:00

Ashley Cole is a reasonably good defender playing for Arsenal. Chelsea agrees, and since they have more money than his current employers they invite him to a hotel room with an interesting proposition. No, not the minibar this time.

Arsenal and the press finds out and Colegate is a fact. A footballer following the money is hardly news, what interests me here is the scandal naming convention of adding a 'gate' to anything that is perceives as, well a scandal.

Since the original Watergate we have had just to name a few Iran-Contragate, Lewinskygate and more recently Svengate

None of these have had the humorous quality of the toothpaste sounding Colegate. Has this opened the floodgate for more amusing names in the tabloids? The possibilities are almost endless.

Haircuts and Socialism

2005-03-24T22:06:00.000-08:00

There is an undeniable link between the political/economical system of a country and the haircuts if its citizens. The rulers of North Korea believes that the success of socialism is so dependent on the haircuts of its population that they have issued a decree forbidding anything that the now dead leader Kim Jong-il would have disliked.

The fun-for-the-whole-family TV series 'Common Sense' that accompanies this initiative claimed that long hair is unhealthy and adversely affects "human intelligence development". This is how opinion is dictated, so sit up and listen Mess. Chirac, Bush and Blair.

Another example where geopolitical change shows up at the barbers' is in East Germany. While this eastern part of the land of the bratwurst was still ruled by the 99.8% of the population that 'voted' the citizens were living a protected life. Little did they know it but they were sheltered from the decadent western haircuts such as the dreaded 'Mullet', invented in America, perfected in West Germany.

Once the Berlin Wall fell the thousand of unemployed West German hairdressers flooded the roads towards Karl Marx Stadt. With them they brought capitalism and freedom of choice. The local youths were convinced, armed with newspaper cut-outs of Rudi Voller they abandoned the 'short back and sides' to become part of the global economy.

Psychological warfare on tax dodgers

2005-03-16T22:58:00.000-08:00

The Andhra Pradesh taxman finally had enough of overdue property taxes. Rather than sending out menacing letters that most people would ignore he choose to let the culprit (and his neighbors) suffer a close encounter with a local drummer camping outside the house.

Result: after one week of constant drumming 18 percent of the backlog was paid off.

Surely this effective tactic should be deployed elsewhere. Imagine the terror of the Glaswegians if the Inland Revenue sent bagpipers to wake them up, or maybe simply parked a car with Starships 1985 anthem 'We Built This City' blasting from a speaker. Though this would most likely be a criminal offence.

Fair Trade according to The Adam Smith Institute

2005-03-15T23:03:00.000-08:00

The Adam Smith Institute is the spiritual home of the 'free-market'. The blog has well argued comments on a large number of topics. "Check out Fair Trade" has a number of issues with the Fair Trade movement.

In short, the market will not be fair until the huge subsidies paid to US/ Euro farmers is stopped. Coffee is cheap because there is too much of it. Paying a premium will certainly not solve this.

I suppose you could argue that there is obviously a demand (albeit small) for Fair Trade goods. Some people are prepared to pay a premium, sort of like the old 'Buy American' response to cheap Japanese imports (though we all know how well that worked...). Farmers who participates gets the reward for producing what a segment of the market wants.

On the other hand this is and probably always will be a tiny fraction of the world market. To get a real improvement the huge issue with subsidies and trade barriers needs to be addressed. Today there is little incentive for a developing countries to export anything than raw produce as the trade barriers are even higher for processed food, they remain trapped selling the ever declining agricultural commodities.

The final paragraph has caught the essence of a well functioning market;

"Markets convey information through prices. The low price of coffee tells producers to produce more cheaply or exit the market."

The prices farmers receives today are today lower than they should be. The supply chain is often inefficient. "Middlemen" are good as long as they add value (grading/ storage/ transport/ financial risk) but becomes a burden if they do not. The lack of price transparency keeps unnecessary middlemen in busisness.

The Power of Markets

2005-03-14T22:36:00.000-08:00

I recently went to the Dominican Republic, a beautiful country with an incredible division of wealth, mansions sits next to slums all over Santo Domingo. My friend Carlos described this as 'poverty pockets'. When the nice areas were built the construction workers were given a piece of land to stay on while working on the project. They never left. The result is a patchwork where rich and poor lives next door but never meet.

My main reason for going to the DR was to get a better understanding on how rural markets a developing country works. One thing really stood out; how incredibly efficient the free market is at catering for the customers needs. The Dominican Republic has a ministry for price control, they take the morning price at the Santo Domingo wholesale market, distributes this to the local agencies then use it as a base for buying and selling produce at lower margins on both buy and sell side. In theory this should be good for both buyers and sellers. However we visited a controlled market of this kind, and it was virtually empty of customers. Only about a mile away there was an impromptu, uncontrolled market place bustling with commerce...

A Digital Vision

2005-03-14T21:18:00.000-08:00

I am currently a fellow at Stanford University. The Reuters Digital Vision Program "supports social entrepreneurs who seek to leverage technology-based solutions in the interest of humanitarian, educational, and sustainable development goals"

I believe that access to relevant and up to date information has the potential to change peoples lives. As the "bang for the buck" factor is always present, my project is focused on providing commodities data to all participants on inefficient markets.

The cost of price discovery is very high on most rural wholesale markets. Imagine a farmer who has traveled for a day to get his crop to market. Once there he is more or less at the mercy of the buyers who can dictate the price. It is very difficult for the farmer to get the best price as no buyer is publishing it openly. This secrecy is stifling competition. In a transparent market the buyers would have to make competitive offers to attract sellers.

Imagine that there was no Internet, no telephone, no TV, no radio, no direct mail, no media at all. You want to buy a car. You know which car you want but have no idea how much it costs. You will probably go to your closest "dealer A" and ask how much it is. Maybe, if you have time, you will then travel to "dealer B" and get a second price. Since A and B are in the same business, they will know each others price and will quote virtually the same. Leaving you with little choice or bargaining power.

Since there is no incentive to compete on price, no extra customers will come if dealer B lowered the price, only those living near. Prices are fixed at the maximum the market can afford.

However in an efficient market Dealer C can have a different strategy. He puts an ad in the paper and cuts his price, he gets a lower margin and a higher volume, forcing A and B to follow.

So what is the ACR?

2005-03-14T17:07:00.000-08:00

I got some questions on this so here is an attempt to clarify.

The digital revolution or whatever we want to call it is a fact. Fantastic, things are now ‘free’ (internet content, VOIP etc) or convenient (cellphones, online shopping etc) but the price we are paying is often non monetary. We are now being watched, and everything we do, everywhere we go is recorded and could be used against us. I am not saying it is right now but it could be.

The thing is that 10 years ago when you put a quarter in a public phone (remember those?) no one knew who you were. Now, when you use your cell phone your conversation can together with your physical location as well as your credit card information easily be recorded, indexed and stored. This information could be used to make you buy products that you probably don’t want/ need or worse, make sure that you are being a ‘good citizen and voter’…

The analog counter revolution does not want to revert to obsolete technologies, just make you think about the real cost of convenience.

US cable 'news' and QVC

2005-03-14T13:46:00.000-08:00

The 24 hour cable 'news' channels in the US have a similar relationship to news as QVC has to entertainment.

Let me explain. QVC, the shopping channel, features a constant sales pitch for everything from poodle embroidered jerseys to juice blenders and entry level PCs. We have never fading smiles from well manicured hosts, only interrupted by unemployed Bakersfield, CA residents complementing the products on how well they fit in their trailers. Its entertainment of the cringing kind, though the bottom line is to flog stuff to you and me

The cable news channels have a similar flow of lightweight news entertainment, hosts and cringing comments. The anchors are smiling, reading out 30 seconds stories with no background. Interruption comes from the 'commentators' commenting on how well the latest scare fits in to their ideological trailers. This is entertainment too, although the bottom line is Nielsen ratings and opinion making.

Watching the two, hthe same question always comes to mind - How can anyone buy all this crap?

Flogging my Bloc

2005-03-14T11:07:00.000-08:00

Strange things happens if you use the blogger.com spell check. Blog and blogging do not exists. Maybe they are waiting to see if catches on before its included in the dictionary.

This is a blog, so maybe I am lying

2005-03-13T23:44:00.000-08:00

Or maybe not, you just don't know.

All bloggers are liars. Epimenides agrees, though he is a Cretan liar, so not sure if he is to be trusted.

Greeks aside, this is one of the big issues for me when it comes to blogs. Speculations, rumors , half-truths are constantly published and taking on lives on their own. A journalist has an editor that checks important stories prior to publication, a blogger has a spell check at most.

So what's the problem? Well, if you think that blogs are the future of the media this is a very serious issue. National news is dying, more and more people only want to hear and read about 1/things that are relevant to themselves (fly-fishing, monster trucks, Sarbanes Oxely) 2/ Opinions that reinforces their own beliefs (axis of evil, house prices, Rod Stewart's haircut)

If we combine these two trends it gets even worse (or better of you prefer it this way). Uncontrolled issue driven propaganda is now the norm. If two people from opposite corners meets they cannot even start discussing as their respective argumentation will be based on two different versions of the truth. And when people can't even talk to each other democracy as we know it is in trouble.

Nokia thinking blinking Morse

2005-03-13T23:19:00.000-08:00

Nokia has filed for several patents using Morse code for various purposes. For example, a bright screen would blink using the Morse alphabet, and then another device would use some sort of camera to decipher it.

So when could this be used? A giant lighthouse blinking all over a city. Annoying stuff, especially of you're trying to sleep, and it would probably not work during the day. So in someone's house then? Clear line of sight needed, the devices would have to be pretty close unless you install an intricate system of mirrors. Probably easier to use Bluetooth or wifi. Unless you're paranoid, but then you will probably worry about the flashing too.

The First Post

2005-03-13T00:40:00.000-08:00

So here we go. This is what they were all blogging about. A small blog for mankind. Anyway.

C. Wright Mills once said that "Every revolution has its counter revolution - that is a sign the revolution is for real." You thought the Digital Revolution was just a buzzword that went down the Information Superhighway on its way to a Global Village meeting? Think again.

The revolution came and went, there is little demand for macro-processors, typewriters and analog watches amongst today's revolutionary youth.

The interesting or even scary thing is that other things are changing also. What used to be taken for granted is not so anymore. Don't get me wrong, I like a good gadget as much as anyone, but with the freedom to ipod came dangers to other freedoms. Freedom of speech for example, this essential part of any self respecting democracy has been redefined. According to a recent study 36% of American High School students thinks that newspapers should have to ask the government for approval prior to publishing a story. Oh dear.