Foxconn Riot

I'm typing this post from a laptop that was made with the blood and sweat of underpaid workers on the other side of the globe.  And as twisted as that is, I am okay with that.

Foxconn, a big supplier of labor and parts for Apple, Microsoft, and Cisco products, suffered a setback this month when a labor riot began including thousands of workers.

The sheer fact that thousands of workers can instantly be caught up in a riot tells you one side of the story already: how in the world is that possible?  It's the easy and most horrific answer: they're crammed into every square foot of space that exists in the room.  The other is, how is this not a human rights violation?

First off, by American standards it definitely is.  Foxconn is an outsourced company in China, however, so that's irrelevant.  It's irrelevant that many of the people that work there get far less than our minimum wage.  It's irrelevant that many of them are consistently forced to work overtime.  It's irrelevant that a great portion of them end up taking their own lives as long as we can get our iPods in part-aluminum cases.

So tell me again how this is legal?

In 2010, Foxconn employees threatened mass suicide off the roof of the factory if wages were not raised and their demands were not met.  And after 17 suicides, Foxconn decided to raise their wages.  Just kidding; they put nets around their factory to prevent it from happening again.

I present to you the biggest outsourced tech supplier for American consumerism.

By now, you're probably asking me why I'm blaming America for this.  It's a Chinese company, after all.  American laws don't apply internationally (unless we want them to, of course.  Re: the Middle East).  However, it's absolutely the fault of corporate America here, albeit indirectly.  A quote from a manager at Foxconn:

“Apple never cared about anything other than increasing product quality and decreasing production cost... Workers’ welfare has nothing to do with their interests."

Now, it's true that our hand of righteousness doesn't extend halfway across the globe.  But it turns out the problem is right here on our soil.  Regulations for outsourcing are entirely possible, and it's strange that as morally upright as we think we are, it hasn't been done yet.  Shame, really.

OH NO SCALE: How do I always end up bashing Apple?

Lemon Test

It's a well-known gentleman's agreement in American government to keep religion out of politics.  "Secularism," it's called.  It's not so much that religion prohibits proper government (which it may or may not) but it's sort of like putting hammers in your cupboard.  Sure, you can do that, and it likely won't cause any problems.  But why?

We've been doing well heeding to secularism for some time.  Almost all the time, really.  As long as you don't count the Tea Party / social conservatives / Michelle Bachmann, the issue hardly ever arises because people tend to be sensible enough to keep government rational.

There is, however, one interesting set of cases regarding religion in education.  Advocates believe that creationism should be taught in schools, either as a parallel to evolution or replacing it entirely.  Dissidents are just the opposite (and who am I to call them dissidents for that?  They're both dissidents, honestly).  The reasoning is the same for both sides; evolution undermines faith while creationism undermines science.  And hence, a stalemate is formed, and both armies abandon the front in an informal ceasefire.

But occasionally, a rogue battalion decides to take action, like in the Edwards vs. Aguillard case when the state of Louisiana authorized the teaching of creationism alongside evolution.  The case reached the state courts where it was evaluated for whether or not it violated the First Amendment of the Constitution, and was ruled against creationism.

Of course, that wasn't enough.  The losing side began to embarrass themselves further by repeating their violation with a beaglepuss on.  They re-published their textbook "Creation Biology" under a different name, "Of Pandas And People," in which the text was almost exactly identical.  Even more comical is that they literally went and replaced every instance of the word "creationism" with "intelligent design" to make it seem different from the former.  This is clear in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial, where it was brought up as evidence.  And to make things even more comical than it already was, this quote was found in the text:

"The basic metabolic pathways (reaction chains) of nearly all organisms are the same.  Is this because of descent from a common ancestor, or because only these pathways (and their variations) can sustain life?  Evolutionists think the former is correct, cdesign proponentsists accept the latter view.  Design proponents..."
- "Of Pandas and People," 1987

Cdesign proponentsists?  Well done.

However, most cases involving religion don't end so clear-cut.  Therefore, the government uses something called a Lemon test, where religious cases are tested for three conditions: whether the case is provided with a secular motive in mind, whether the case doesn't harm nor advance religion, and whether the case keeps its distance from the workings of politics.  Any failure of these issues is enough to warrant the death of the issue.

In the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, for example, the court ruled Louisiana in violation of all three parts of the Lemon test.  The teaching of creationism was clearly stressed with a religious motive (which violates part two as well).  Also, it was a clear attempt to rally government support behind the teaching of faith.

The Lemon test has become the standard for evaluating religious cases and remains an important ideal for secularism.

A Daily Dose of Paranoia (ft. Malte Spitz)

I watched this TED talk the other day.  Brilliant talk (aren't they all?  If I had my way I'd quit school and live off of these), and it brought up a very interesting point.  The video showcases how one man politely asks his cell phone company for the information they had on file for him.  By politely, I mean call them incessantly, and then file a lawsuit against them.  Whatever you need to do, I suppose.

They eventually released a huge, truly gargantuan file with everyone he's called for the last few months -- where and when.

There's definitely a gray area here.

When you register for a service, you typically give them certain rights as outlined in their EULA.  One, very often, they store a file on you.  This is fairly common practice.  Do you have a Facebook account?  An eBay account?  Amazon?  It's all the same.  And it makes perfect sense to; it's basic system infrastructure.  Two, they use that information to synthesize other, related concepts.  Netflix uses an algorithm that recommends movies to you based on those you rated highly.

That's honestly all Mr. Spitz's cell phone company did.  Heck, it didn't even do the second part.  But after graphing the data himself, he found out that there was enough information to completely track every aspect of his daily routine.

They aren't breaking laws.  There aren't any protections against this sort of thing (are there? Feel free to correct me).  It's just that cell phones have become ubiquitous enough that they're now part of everyday life, and therefore information that's required for just managing your cell phone can now be used to piece together your life.

But how long can this policy last?  When Google Fiber was released, a pallid fear appeared over the faces of all the techies of the nation.  They're serving Internet now?  My god, they're taking over the world!

Thirty years ago, that idea would've been ludicrous.  The idea that an entity (a private enterprise, no less!) would become so incredibly ubiquitous that the mere task of managing themselves as a company would double as an intrusion of privacy over all of its users.  The idea that we'd become so unbearably reliant on communication systems that they bleed over into personal circles of thought.

Times have changed exponentially.  And, if the trend holds steady, then somewhere along the lines we'll need laws for this.  Personal information stored en masse is not only creepy but downright dangerous; a cybercriminal that compromises the security of a single phone model could gain some incredibly potent data.  But not now, not yet.  When the time comes.

The real question here is, where do you draw the line?

The Two Essential Evils

Oh, how the waves of politics twist and turn.

How the wrinkles of public opinion thrive and manifest themselves in shouting crowds and obnoxious talk show hosts; how the simple, humble roots of America have stretched their squabbly arms to form the puffy willow trees of today's society.  Of how it waxes -- it wanes -- and yet it waxes again, strewing ever more complex, as it expands to a glorious fractal that skids the definition of a ball of steel wool, so very clumped and unorganized; and yet, in fact, surpasses the likes of the wool itself.

What I'm talking about is the namesake of this blog, of course.  And despite how truly poetic and complicated politics has become, look closer and all you really see are two factions sissy-fighting each other.

The two essential evils of modern politics are government and private enterprise.  Both claim to act for the common interest.  Interview Apple, and they'll say their products better the life of the consumer.  Interview Obama, and he'll say his policies run for the welfare of the people.  But both government and private enterprise have had their run, and in many cases what they have done were not so.  Think 1870's robber barons, wild fraud and overspeculation in the 1920's, failure of supply-side economics in the 1980's.  Government, you're not off the hook either; President Grant's term accepted bribes all over.

Yet, at the same time, they are essential.  How would we do without private enterprise?  They're the minority, sure.  They serve themselves first and the people second, sure (that's simply Business 101).  But they're incredibly efficient.  Vanderbilt extended railroads all throughout the United States.  Carnegie created some of the nation's cheapest and highest-quality steel through his integrated production process.  NASA partitioned itself largely to private enterprise for low cost space drudgery, like refuelings and ISS repairs.  And heck, I hate Apple with a passion, but even I have to admit that they transformed modern entertainment and communications for the better.

And I don't think I have to go over why we need government.  Anarchy is no good medicine.

So I guess our two greatest flaws are here to stay.

Open Politics: Democratic or International Suicide?

I know what you're thinking: is WikiLeaks a thing anymore?  But really I feel like this blog wouldn't be complete without a post about good ole' Julian Assange, wherever he is.

Quick overview: WikiLeaks is a site dedicated to publishing incriminating news of government works.  It received big press last year due to it being what would technically be called a massive gaping hole in U.S. informational security.  Admist controversy of people shouting to close it down (threat to domestic security!), keep it up (transparency in government!), rebel against the status quo (I'm f'king V for Vendetta!), it's somehow magically still up and still publishing its anger-fuel.

If you want a quick example, they recently published a bunch of emails regarding Syrian involvement and how the Western world is responding (or rather, not).

The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, was granted asylum by Ecuador's embassy in London.  Great Britain is determined to reverse that decision, putting pressure on Ecuador to release him and send him off to Sweden for trial (or worse, the United States).  He'd likely be charged for treason, with the penalty of jail time (at best) or death (at worst).

Thing is, some people think his actions are morally just.  Why would a government have to hide information from its people?  If it's acting legitimate then there's no fear of having its documents leaked, right?

That stance is, it turns out, extremely hard to support.  Not to mention that most of the major publications don't even classify as human rights violations, but international affairs.

Some leaked documents two years back revealed China's disclosures to the U.S. about possibly turning on North Korea, letting South Korea overtake its totalitarian rival.  Needless to say, Kim Jong Il wasn't fantastically happy about that.  Another set reveals how Iran's neighbors tolerate Iran's nuclear program but secretly urge the U.S. to aggressively stop the program.

The site had well over 1 million articles within a year, and who-knows-how-many now.  There's no debate: it's a massive hole in national security.  But is it worth it?

After all, documents were also released revealing accounts of civilian casualties in Iraq.  They also revealed how many detainees at Guantanamo Bay were being taken into custody and treated inhumanely for little-to-no reason.  Surely these are human rights violations that deserve some form of recognition?

It's a pragmatism vs. morals problem and something that will be interesting to keep in mind as Assange's potential trial unfolds in the near future.

OH NO SCALE: Yes?  No?  Maybe?

What happened to compromise?

It's hard to look at the United States of America in modern times and say it's a land of compromise.  Politics are more partisan than ever, and the advertising market shows.  Attacking the opposing party is now nearly as influential, if not more, than actually praising your own.  The media is dominated by far-leftists, far-rightists, and nay in between.

When you look at our roots, the exact opposite shows.  The Constitution itself already bounces the concept of compromise with its federalist message: powers are shared between the states and the national government.  Bicameral Congress.  Virtually everything written in it is focused on the idea of unity between conflicting ideals.

The Great Compromise (or, what-say-you, the Connecticut Compromise) was a division of power between the small states and large states.  Small states had the New Jersey Plan, in which all states would have a fixed number of representatives.  Large states had the Virginia Plan, in which all states would have a number of representatives proportional to the population.  'Lo and behold, out came The Great Compromise, splitting Congress into the House of Representatives (large-state plan) and the Senate (small-state plan), with division of powers amongst all involved.

Washington, in his Farewell Address, designated the United States to avoid two things.  One, crazy foreign entanglement (so much for that).  Two, partisan political parties.  There's not much more contrast you can get with that.  James Madison, in his Federalist #10 paper, suggested the same: avoid factions with conflicting interests.

Run forward a little.  During the Civil War, when the nation tore itself apart over what really boiled down to the economic divisions of slavery.  During the Reconstruction period, the nation managed to dish out the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which were forced upon the South but nevertheless brought them into the manufacturing age.  FDR brought the nation through a crippling Depression and a World War without much political opposition at all.  And really, it was rare for any U.S. President to be seriously blocked by the opposite party once in office.

Not anymore.

The Obama Administration suffered extreme roadblocks with Republican refusal to compromise.  Every issue, running from health care to tax rates, was met with serious opposition.

So, what happened to compromise?

OH NO SCALE: Oh no!

The Trust on E-Books

The term "trust" [1] started to appear around the late 1800's in U.S. history, when post-Civil War industrialists [2] took advantage of the troubled South to prop up their businesses.  Efforts to rebuild the South allowed industries such as railroads, steel, and oil to thrive.  The Carnegie Steel Company, for example, managed to take over the entire production process for its steel, allowing it to cut out middlemen and offer high-quality steel at lower prices than its competitors.  However, these "big businesses" were typically not very beneficial.  John D. Rockefeller, for example, established a trust, in which he'd merge with other businesses to slowly force competitors into bankruptcy, and then charged excessive rates once he owned a monopoly over the oil industry.

Or, as William Henry Vanderbilt colorfully put it: "The public be damned!" [3]

With the emerging market on E-books, it's easy to see the same patterns.  A trio of publishers (Hachette's Book Group, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins) were charged with forming a trust on the market -- collaborating with Apple and it's marketing system through the iPad to raise prices.

The market started with the development of Amazon's Kindle.  New E-Ink technology allowed users to read books without the use of a backlight, preventing retinal deterioration.  The innovation spawned an industry of digital books, which previously was not practical or intuitive.

Amazon set a maximum price for its books at $9.99.

Then came Apple, jumping on the bandwagon with iBooks, in which users could purchace E-Books through the iPad.  They allowed publishers to price their books higher than they could through Amazon.  Many publishers quickly began to collaborate with Apple instead, draining Amazon's profits.  They were eventually forced to follow suit, allowing publishers to set their price, and such began the trust on E-Books.

Just as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act began breaking up "bad" trusts, a settlement was recently achieved in which pricing agreements between publishers and Apple were rendered void. [4]  To restore competition, publishers were forced to allow retailers to adjust prices as they saw fit.

Judge Denise Cote, when deciding the case, placed emphasis merely on the destruction of monopoly-building between retailers and publishers.

It's very likely that this settlement will allow cleaner competition throughout the E-Books market.

OH NO SCALE: Not so bad

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_%28monopoly%29
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_%28industrialist%29
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Vanderbilt
[4] http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/06/technology/ebook-settlement/index.html

Constitutional Republics... Unfallible?

You're all familiar with the U.S. Constitution, but for the sake of clarity, here's a super-fast run-down.

The United States Constitution went into effect in the year 1789, defining the nation as a federal constitutional republic, in which its representatives are elected by the people and have limited powers as defined by the Constitution.  The document is a melting pot of ideas, namely those of John Locke and Montesquieu (a man we'll refer to by his last name merely because his full name is a frightening eleven words long).  John Locke offered his philosophy of "consent of the governed," in which the government existed to serve the people [1], while Montesquieu offered the idea of a separated government of three branches -- legislative, executive, and judicial. [2]  Thus is the nature of how our government stands.

Let's compare our constitution to those of other governments:

Around the time the U.S. Constitution was being written, the French Revolution was happening across the ocean. [3]  After the fall of King Louis XVI and his centuries-old regime, the newly-born French government drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which associated citizens with the rights of "life, liberty, and property." [4]  Sound familiar?  We stole it, changing "property" to "the Pursuit of Happiness."  Modern France is now a Unitary Semi-Presidential Constitutional Republic, led by a two-house Parliament not too different from our own Congress.

Great Britain, of which we owe our roots, lands a similar system with its Unitary Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy. [5]
  The UK is ruled by a prime minister, who selects all of the lower ministers to serve in Parliament.  As such, a balance of power is achieved between Parliament (similar to Congress) and Prime Minister (similar to President).

How successful are constitutional governments?

Looking at just the three major powers of the Colonial Era, it's easy to tell.

The French Revolution encouraged a large chunk of Europe and other areas to declare war against France (aggressors including Great Britain and the Holy Roman Empire), firing off the French Revolutionary Wars. [6]  Despite the recent chaos in the nation, the French won handily, taking territory in Italy and elsewhere.  Then began the Napoleonic Wars, which, while ending France's reign as the most powerful European nation, expanded its territory yet further. [7]

Great Britain, despite having lost the Americas as a colony, enjoyed structure and order within itself during the Pax Britannica, roughly a century of dominance in the European world. [8]

But it'd be narrow-minded to proclaim that a constitutional republic/monarchy is "the best form of government," or even near the top of the list.  A case study exists in the early government of Venezuela.  After two failed attempts at independence, Venezuela finally reached its goal with the help of Simón Bolívar.  A constitutional convention was created to draft a new system of government for the nation, but was torn apart by opposing groups, before Simón Bolívar proclaimed himself as dictator anyways.  Fast forward 200 years and we see that the nation remains under the rule of Hugo Chavez, frequently governing by decree and with only a weak Parliament to balance his rule.

It's impossible to say that any government is unfallible.  Constitutional governments, while successful in the larger European superpowers and the U.S., aren't a one-size-fits-all solution.

Here's a nice quote by Winston Churchill to end.

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

OH NO SCALE: Poor Venezuela :'(

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montesquieu
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolutionary_Wars
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars#Political_effects
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Britannica

Apple sues Samsung on stupid things and wins

If you've been following the tech industry at all lately, you'll probably have heard of the (big font)

APPLE VERSUS SAMSUNG COURT ISSUE,

but if you haven't then here's a run-down.

Apple sued Samsung for violating a few user-interface patents held by Apple, namely U.S. Patent '915, U.S. Patent '163, U.S. Patent '381, and multiple others.  The patents range from trivial features like "double-tap to zoom" to the "bounce-back effect" (moving past the screen on webpages will cause the view to snap back) to the design of the backing of smartphones.

The purpose of the U.S. patenting system was simple and straightforward -- encourage innovation by protecting ideas.  People who knew they would be free to sell their product without competition from rivals selling the same product would be more likely to create that product in the first place.  Or, in Constitution-speak:

The Congress shall have power...To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
~ U.S. Constitution, Article One, Section 8(8) [1]

Patents last, in general, for 20 years before they become public domain (unless they are renewed under Patent Term Adjustment).

Apple's patents are roughly a year old.  They're perfectly valid.  What's questionably valid is whether or not the patents in question are specific enough that they're actually patent-able.

The patent process has requirements for novelty under which a patent may be submitted. [3]  If the patent has been used or known previously within the U.S., or if it has been described or patented internationally, it is invalid.  If the patent is based on something that was not invented by the patentee, it is invalid. [4]

The list is long and wordy, but essentially the patent has to be not-completely-trivial (you can't patent the use of wires, for example) and also has to be completely and undoubtedly your intellectual property.

The court presided over features that were honestly trivial in nature.  You wouldn't consider a "double tap to zoom" feature to be grand thievery, would you?  You wouldn't consider a little "bounce back" animation to be the greatest piece of intellectual property?

Thing is, this sort of thing happens all the time between major industrial giants.  Colloquially, they're known as patent wars, in which a company will dedicate a part of their legal team exclusively for combing through rival products and picking out minor details to attack in court.  U.S. patent law is weak enough in that the opposing legal team will have to respond by throwing massive amounts of money into their own lawyers, to counter the lawsuit and engage in their own.

It's a matter of exclusivity.  Tech giants use it as a way to push down the quality of the products of their competitors.  Only Apple can use the "bounce back" effect in their phones now.

So why should you care?

As a fellow lover of all things tech (right? Of course!), patents like these will become seriously detrimental to the innovation that the patent system was built to protect.  In the court ruling, the jury ruled every single Apple patent in question to be valid.  In short: not a single opposing smartphone company can use those patents.  The thing is, most of the patents licensed under Apple simply make sense.  Pinch to zoom?  That's something people have always dreamed of in old sci-fi movies.  It's simply intuitive.

The actual implications of the court case are minimal at best; Samsung was charged a measly $1,051,855,000, which is insignificant when you consider that Samsung makes a hundred times that yearly.  But this decision pushes tech into the wrong direction.

If there's an answer to a design problem that "simply works," you probably won't be able to incorporate it into your product without having to battle a lawsuit over it.

That, simply put, could become a very big problem for the innovative future.

OH NO SCALE: Very :(

1 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_patent_law
2 http://www.macrumors.com/2012/08/24/jury-reaches-verdict-in-apple-vs-samsung-trial/
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_%28patent%29#United_States
4 http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/appxl_35_U_S_C_102.htm