I Confess.

( I Like Biker Chicks )

Apache Blahs

I just discovered that Apache with SSL (for https support) doesn't restart cleanly after a power failure. The culprit turned out to be an ssl_scache file that I had to purge. It would have been MUCH more helpful if the 'Error - File Exists' message in the log had specified WHICH file already existed. How hard would THAT have been to code, hmmm?

Grammar Slammer

I may not be the best writer around, and my own spelling and grammar are not always of T3H S4NE, but I know and remember the difference between "a baby brush-tailed possum", "a baby-brush tailed possum" and a "baby brush tailed possum", but sometimes it seems like no one else does.

IT ANNOYS ME, IT DOES!!!

Malice and Stupidity.

As electricland recently reminded me, it was Robert J. Hanlon who first said, in what has come to be known as Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

The problem, of course, is knowing what can be adequately explained by stupidity. Here, for example, is another data point:
( Click for Stupidty )

I should add that the above chart came from _grey_knight and I don't know if it is true or not. Someone should check out the references on it and see if its legit...

All Gone.

I just recently had cause to check out my User Info page, and I was struck by the number of friends who've deleted their journals lately, for one reason or another. Among the lost I can now number mrmustard, dilu, and maytricks. As well, today emjayne was threatening to join their ranks.

I also noticed that today is supposedly shreddy's birthday, but I don't think these facts are related.

Another Biz Idea: Tenant Farming

While visiting nancyrihakova the other day, _sps_ had an idea for a business that would most likely be lucrative, and I thought I would share it.

We were discussing the fact that owning rental property and being a landlord had major advantages and that rental property was easier to get mortgages on than non-rental, and thus one can often afford a $450,000 rental property with the same sort of collateral that would only get you a $200,000 personal property. The downside to all of this, of course, is the tenants. If you have good tenants then all goes well, but when they are the tenants from hell, the rental property can often become a money sink.

So, the solution seems clear: Tenant Insurance. For a certain percentage of the monthy mortgage, the business checks the credit ratings of potential clients, lets them know if they miss too many payments (or are habitually late) handles compaints from other tenants, and takes legal action to evict someone when necessary. Since most of the time, most people are good tenants, the business mostly sits there and does nothing, and so makes a tidy profit. The rub is that they occasionally have to deal with the messiest of situations, but that's why the landowners are willing to pay the percentage.

Such a company, lets call it a Virtual Rental Office for want of a better term, could easily branch out into similar sidelines. For a monthly fee depending on the size and type of property involved, they could undertake to:

• Collect and redistribute rent monies
• Provide regular janitorial services
• Provide emergency repair services
• Handle complaints and suggestions from tenants
• Handle property upkeep and maintenance.
• Advertise vacant properties and negotiate rental contracts.
• Pay property taxes and ensure the property met all relevant building codes.
• Undertake regular property upgrades and beautification initiatives.
  

A landlord could sign up for the total package and never have to think about their property again, except when the monthly cheques or quarterly property statements arrived in the mail. They could even be a tenant in their own building and none of their neighbors need ever know that they are the landlord.

For its part, the Virtual Rental Office can make substantial money off of rental income, without ever owning any rental property. The only things you would need for this to succeed is:

1. Someone who has had extensive experience managing a large rental property in the first target city, so that you can draw on their expertise.
2. A strong commitment to customer satisfaction, both of the tenants, and of the landowners. Your success will depend on keeping BOTH happy, as you are acting as an interface between the two groups.

Since I don't know anyone who satisfies #1, I certainly can't make a go of this, but I'm sure that there is someone out there who can.

Oh, and for the obligatory geek tie-ins, one of the many services that one would offer client buildings would be Wireless Internet, TV, Music and VOIP, the possible connection to NWO is left as an excercise for the reader.

Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software

One of my current passions is the design of social and collaborative software systems. As such, I try to always keep an eye open for relevant essays on these subjects. Such are not easy to find, but this is now the second one that I've seen published by Clay Shirky. The man seems to most definitely have a clue.

Anyway, here's a pointer to his latest essay: Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software

Business simulations spark rapid workplace renovations

Here is a fascinating article on the use of simulations to retrain key workers in a business to better run the company. What is most amazing is that the retraining only takes 2 days.

Evolutionary Economics.

Here is a fascinating paper that deals with modelling financial markets as evolutionarily adaptive systems inhabited by investment strategies that are subject to selection pressures. It gives a good overview of the basic economic theory that it is trying to supplant, and explains the failures of previous systems in detail. One of the parts that made me chuckle was where the author contrasts the fast and loose 'science' of economics with the far greater rigor of psychology...

The article has also given me pause to seriously consider that there IS room for a second volume in the Foundations of Xenobiology book that I want to write. Up until now I've only seriously considered a single volume (perhaps 800 pages) that presents a synthesis of Biology, Evolution, biomechanics, information theory, Artificial Life and complexity theory. This would give an outline of the possible ways to talk about alien life forms. No (or very little) mention would be made of alien intelligence, as the first volume would already be speculative enough. Now I'm beginning to think that there IS actually enough real science on evolution's effects on cognitive strategies that a sketch could be made of a theory of alien intelligence. Hmmm.

Dispair at the state of science research.

The fact that there are working scientists like this one who seem to not have understood AT ALL what Dawkin's Extended Phenotype book was all about, makes me rather upset. I mean, its one thing for a layman to not know much about evolution. I would forgive someone like me for not knowing about extended phenotypes and the reciprical effects of creatures and environments on each other, but a researcher in the field? For shame!

Data on the Evolution of Intelligence.

Further to what I said a few posts ago about there now being enough data to think about writing a book on how alien intelligence might evolve, here is an article about the evolution of intelligence in cetaceans. I would have predicted their findings, based on the theory that intelligence allows you to exploit complex niches that non-intelligent creatures cannot make use of. That alone would seem to be a driving force behind intelligence.