Remotely from Penang, again

I had been surprised that there was a list that indicated that Bangkok and Penang had great Internet speeds which was not something I had experienced. This time round I tried it again and it is only slightly better and the experience was fairly uneven. In Bangkok I wasn't able to stream Coursera videos without significant lag and buffering. YouTube videos seemed to be fine. Downloading a 80 MB file took about 15-20 minutes. In Penang, this was much the same. Most likely it depends on the telco as well as the amount of traffic at the time. I'm thinking that the list is pretty much meaningless.

Traveling over the holidays

We decided to try traveling to Penang and Bangkok this past Christmas season. The lines at Dulles airport were long but the (cute red headed) CBP agent was surprisingly cheerful when she checked our passports and let us through. That alone was enough to make my day.

Surprisingly, we didn't have to remove laptops from our carry-ons nor did we have to remove our shoes. This was not the case at other airports however. In Dubai and Bangkok we had to take the laptops out of our bags. We didn't remove our shoes although some passengers did and the security staff there did not indicate anything to us. The security procedures aren't evenly applied to say the least.

One surprise (for me who doesn't travel much) was the introduction of machines for reading passports at Dulles. However, it didn't seem to make much of a dent in the lines although it is hard to tell when you're the one in a long line. As always, helpful airport staff directed us to which counters we could wait at since we weren't eligible for the machines.

Automated passport processing has already been in place for a while in Penang (at least since last year). Place the passport in the bin, take a fingerprint scan and then you're done. This is only for Malaysian citizens however. It isn't clear to me what this has to be the case. Now that most passports have biometric information (and possibly chipped) it seems that almost everyone who has a new passport should be able to be processed by a machines. It is way more pleasant than waiting in a long line and much faster.

Penang and Bangkok in December

Wow, the weather was cool - I have forgotten that this was possible 28 degrees C for most of the time. Of course it is also monsoon season with its annual floods. This is in contrast to the heat and humidity of July and August when we usually visit.

Anthropologists are better than we think

MR posted the question: Are anthropologists better than you think? Apparently at least the US government thinks so.

Many independent scholars are critical of what they see as the US government's efforts to militarise social science in the service of war. In May 2008, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) wrote to the US government noting that the Pentagon lacks "the kind of infrastructure for evaluating anthropological [and other social science] research" in a way that involves "rigorous, balanced and objective peer review", ... 

Citing a summary critique of the programme sent to HTS directors by a former employee, Price reported that the HTS training scenarios "adapted COIN [counterinsurgency] for Afghanistan/Iraq" to domestic situations "in the USA where the local population was seen from the military perspective as threatening the established balance of power and influence, and challenging law and order." 

One war-game, said Price, involved environmental activists protesting pollution from a coal-fired plant near Missouri, some of whom were members of the well-known environmental NGO Sierra Club. Participants were tasked to "identify those who were 'problem-solvers' and those who were 'problem-causers,' and the rest of the population whom would be the target of the information operations to move their Center of Gravity toward that set of viewpoints and values which was the 'desired end-state' of the military's strategy."

This is from the Guardian.

Is it time to return to print ads

There is something about print ads that isn't captured by electronic screens. Even more so now that it is entirely possible that:

Robot fraudsters account for nearly a quarter of “people” watching online video ads and more than one in 10 display ads, according to the largest investigation to date into the digital advertising industry.
...
Bot fraudsters infect unsuspecting computer users with malware – malicious software. Sophisticated botnets mimic the behaviour of online consumers, pausing at ads, watching videos, switching websites and even putting items in shopping carts. This fake traffic is often bought by publishers who are unaware their audience is fake.

Despite all the advances that the Internet has brought us - the business model remains selling ads - and this is the domain of the great technology giant of our time - Google whose ads are about as eye-catching as ... er, well nothing. It is also the domain of the same technology behemoth's video ads via You Tube which are as good as, er, TV ads?

So should businesses continue to advertise online via Google or any kind of broad ad generating system such as Amazon? Or should they focus on narrow channels as is already happening - via Facebook, Hulu, etc.? Does this spell the beginning of the end for Google's business model?

Things I never knew

Authorities warned of minor flooding along the Sacramento River in Tehama County and Cache Creek in Yolo County.

From the Pineapple Express. After all, YOLO.

Android + Java = ?

Java is so riddled with security flaws that I am not sure why Google decided not to offer an alternative language when it decided to release Android Studio. As far as I can tell this is just a switch from Eclipse to InteliJ. Even worse is the the fact that Java is still being used for new development.

It's time to kill Java but Google and its ilk are continuing to promote a language that is riddled with security problems thereby prolonging its useless life. Schools still teach the language without any discussion to about its security flaws.