German President Horst Köhler visited Ghana last week, and and attended a conference with several African leaders. Apparently he also met Togo’s Faure Gnassingbé, who “inherited” the family business of running Togo from his dad, the late Gnassingbé Eyadema. The official Togolese government news website claims that the meeting was cordial, and that Köhler promised Germany’s support for the democratization of Togo. After a decade of German and EU sanctions against the illegitimate regime of the Gnassingbé clan in Togo, the fact that this meeting took place alone, could be construed as a warming of relations, I suppose. But promises of “support for democratization” efforts could mean anything.

With legislative elections in Togo this year, the EU is probably interested in warming relations with the regime in Lomé so they can keep a closer eye on the elections. Also, the national unity government between the RPT and the UFC has raised hopes that there may be progress possible in Togo. With the old man gone, engagement may be the way to turn Togo around. However, only if the French government stops propping up the RPT and the Gnassingbé clan. Unless the French quit meddling in Togo, neither sanctions nor engagement will produce democracy in Togo.

Since last weekend, this cold front moved into North Carolina and the temperatures in the Triangle area dropped from the mid-70s F. /low 20s C on Monday to below freezing Wednesday (a difference of over 40 deg. F or 20 deg. C in about 40 hours!). And this morning we woke up to an inch (3-4 cm) of snow on the ground! Wow – from a day on the beach to snow in a couple of days.

To Accra, to be specific. The German President Horst Köhler headed a delegation of 170 Germans at the Partnership with Africa conference that included several African heads of state and international leaders: Presidents John Agyekum Kufuor (Ghana), Festus G. Mogae (Botswana), Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (Liberia), Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria) as well as Alpha Oumar Konare of the African Union. The focus of the conference was on leadership development – perhaps the most important aspect of development aid. Besides the big-wigs, the conference brought together 50 African and European “young leaders” for networking and for brainstorming about the future of the Africa, and Germany’s role in it. The event took place at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Ghana’s capital Accra on Jan 12-15.

The fact that Köhler bothered to attend this event is a good sign, maybe. And considering his IMF background, it makes sense. I think Germany, and the rest of Europe, may begin to realize that they need to engage African countries and their people in constructive ways, in order to strengthen the relationship between the two continents. The problem right now is that Europe is trying to fence itself off from Africa, and that is a dumb idea. Europe needs the immigrants from the South, to bolster its dwindling workforce. Those immigrants send substantial amounts of money back home, which supports local economies and builds buying power of consumers in Africa. And if Africa’s ties to Europe are strong, chances are African consumers will want European products. China has discovered Africa as both a labor pool and a market for Chinese products. Europe is going to have to get on that train, or it’ll leave the station. If China has the stronger ties with Africa in the upcoming years, China will have better access to the wealth of resources in Africa, as well as to African markets.

From a European perspective, it’d be a shame to loose out on access to Africa. But if the Chinese wins this one, they deserve it, as they clearly take Africa very seriously. From the African perspective, a strong relationship with Europe must be desirable, because of the geographic proximity and because so many Africans already live there. And competition between Europe and Asia for access in Africa would certainly benefit African economies.

And that’s where the leadership development comes in. Africa has to develop its pool of civic leaders, at every level, from farmer’s coops and teachers to national parties and government. Every community needs a handful of civic leaders, men and women with a clear, progressive vision for the future of their community and their country. These people are the seeds of democracy, and a true, participatory democracy is the best recipe for successful, sustainable economic development. Aid, and debt relief may help, but only in combination with leadership development and local, broad empowerment initiatives. If Germany is serious about its engagement with African countries, that’s where it should start. Germany has a strong tradition of civic leadership and civic life, and it should be quite possible for German leaders to leverage this tradition to help build a new generation of civic leaders across Africa. I think that Germans will find a lot to learn from their African counterparts, and I am sure that such a collaboration would benefit both sides tremendously. And that would make development a two-way street, and a win-win proposition.

Here are some more pictures from our weekend at the beach January 14/15! Sunday morning was gloriously warm and sunny; in the afternoon clouds rolled in, which made the light for our trip to Cape Lookout quite interesting. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, on the way home from work, the Jetta passed its 65,000 miles marker (and the airbag light came on). That means, it’s been running on mostly biodiesel for over 27,000 miles. :) Yippee!!

No -this is not Southern Florida or South Africa – this is Atlantic Beach, NC in January! Looking at the weather report for the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, our friend Susan decided to head out to her beach house for the weekend. When she asked if we wanted to come along … well, we had to carefully consider our plans for the weekend … for 2 seconds.

We drove out to Atlantic Beach on Saturday evening after Laura got off work. Sunday morning was great – it was sunny and warm (mid-70s F. /low 20s C), the kids were playing in the surf (!) and Dolphins were cruising up and down the beach (LOTS of dolphins). The water was freaking cold – 55F/12C – but the kids did not care! I did – I tried it and it was freezing!! I wanted to see if I could get close to one of those dolphins … duh! I spent about 5 Minutes in the water and Laura says I was purple when I came out.

In the afternoon, we took a boat (see right) to the Cape Lookout lighthouse and went for a walk along the beach. It was gorgeous – a gentle breeze was blowing in from the ocean and there were hardly any people around. But lots of Dolphins were hunting right off the beach. Once in a while they’d get a baitball going and the water would start boiling, and the pelicans would start dive-bombing, while the dolphins were feeding on the fish.

On the way back, the skipper picked up a family on Shackleford Banks, where they had been hanging out with the wild mustangs there. Sometime in the spring we should go there camping over night. That would be a great adventure and it’d be so cool to watch the mustangs.

Today, we hung out in the morning, and cleaned the house. Then we went to the Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium (free admission today!). We spent a couple of hours looking at the “fishies,” petted the horseshoe crabs, and gawked at the sharks in the big tank. Around 3 PM we headed back home. What a great weekend!

In December, right before Christmas, I went to Sam’s Quick Mart in Durham to pick up some of my favorite beers for the holidays. I came across the Olde School Barleywine from Dogfish Head in Vermont. I have had some barleywine from other breweries in the past, and did not get too excited about what I tried.

On Christmas Day, we had some friends and family over, and Laura cooked this wonderful goose, which was accompanied by a very hearty, yummy Zinfandel. after the meal, I opened a bottle of the Olde School, but then it was also time for desert. So I ended up with a glass of barleywine and a slice of peppermint pie (Julia’s request for desert). I was quite amazed that the Olde School barleywine and the peppermint pie actually went together just fine.

The Olde School is one hell of a beer! It’s more like a nice, old port, and it demands attention. At 15 percent Alc. Vol., this is not a beer you chug from the bottle at a party. Pour it into a tulip glass, (I had it in a red wine glass) and let it warm a bit. It quite sweet, but it has a lot more character than any barleywine I have had. It’s intense, but the alcohol is not overpowering. Clearly, this is not everyone’s thing, but I think this makes a fine desert drink.

Prost!

For all you non-parents: Elmo is a red Sesame-Street “monster” that talks about himself in the third person. Toys based on this character have been extremely successful over the last 10 years. In 1996, a Wal-Mart clerk “suffered a pulled hamstring, injuries to his back, jaw and knee, a broken rib and a concussion” after he was trampled by 300 crazed shoppers because he held one of the remaining Elmo toys in the store (Wikipedia).

I remember hearing about Elmo Extreme last fall on the NPR news-quiz show “Wait-Wait, Don’t Tell Me” when the guy behind Elmo, the master puppeteer Kevin Clash plays their game called, “Shut up! Shut up! I’m going to cut your mike!” about Bill O’Reilly. Kevin is really funny, so I thought the brief reference to the Elmo Extreme was just a joke. (A bit of a sick joke, actually.)

Not so. Last fall the toy manufacturer Mattel came out with the 10th-anniversary edition of the best-selling and much loathed “tickle-me-Elmo” – the Elmo TMX (see this video on YouTube). In the cherished Elmo tradition, this toy seems rather annoying, but I also know that these robotic toys often inspire hackers, and I can’t wait to see what the geeks are going to do with Elmo when they figure out how to hack him (Elmo probably run a Linux flavor). Yeah, like the geeks who hacked “Big Mouth Billy Bass” and tried to turn the singing fish into a video-conference device.

In the meantime, we’ll have to contend with the less creative, but quite effective Elmo Extreme on Fire (video). The images of the little red monster doing its giggle routine, while burning to a crisp, is oddly disturbing and cathartic at the same time. Enjoy, I guess …

The Dakar Rally has always fascinated me, even though, over the years, I became increasingly aware of its questionable ethics regarding the communities it touches, and the waste of resources on a vain, more-or-less useless sporting event. Motorsports are basically pretty stupid, but still, I cannot totally escape the fascination of a race across the Sahara.

I wish they’d work more to produce support for the communities they cross, and I wish they’d use renewable fuels, like biodiesel or ethanol. Still, of all motorsports, this is the one I find pretty interesting. Formula One is a huge circus of primadonnas in big cars, and NASCAR should be called NASnore. I mean, how long can one watch cars making left turns?

After crossing the Sahara many years ago in shitty, banged-up Peugeots, I always dreamed of going back there with decent equipment, four-wheel drive trucks, and a decent camera, to really enjoy this amazing, tough place. At the time, we were so focused on just making it, that we wasted very little thought on how awesome a place the Sahara is.

So, once again, the Dakar is under way, and the first stages in Portugal apparently were dominated by the Portugese. It appears that the Volkwagen team is doing well (places 1-4 in the first stage). The trucks look cool, OMG. Anyway, I hope that there are no major accidents, and that they don’t run over too many chickens in the villages in Africa.

Last year had a couple of surprises for us, although most of these have yet to be completely realized: we found a new house, but we have yet to move there; we began planning our trip to Togo (and Ghana) for the upcoming July; and the Democrats won back the U.S. Congress.

One of the biggest changes in our lives in 2006 was Agbessi’s move to Durham. He stayed with us during the summer and then moved to an apartment in Durham. It’s great to have him here; he is like a family member to us. Hopefully we’ll all be able to travel back to our village in Togo together this summer. It’ll be really cool to show up back in Yikpa, the village where Laura and I met 15 years ago, with our children AND with one of the Yikpato from America!

In July 2007, Laura will lead a group of customers an volunteers from her Fair Trade store in Durham on a tour of Ghana, visiting some of the artisans and coops that offer their wares at One World Market. We are planning to leave a week earlier and visit our village in Togo first. This is a big deal to us – taking our children back to the village where we met. And if Agbessi can come with us that’ll e even cooler because he knows our life in the U.S. and his presence will strengthen the bond between our families even more.

In August, Laura found a little house for us, a bit closer to Durham, and a very pretty 2-acre property. We signed a contract but the inspection turned up some serious structural problems. The seller agreed to have the problems fixed. Now, three months later, the contractors have left, and a water test turned up problems with the well that supplies the house with water. Currently we’re in the process of determining what needs to be done to treat the water. Probably a filter and a UV light will be alright. It’s really too bad that this is such an obstacle course. Yet, we have looked around, and we have not found another house for sale that would change our mind.

For Laura’s store, 2006 was a great year. They sold over $430,000 in Fair Trade merchandise, which supports communities all over the world. About a quarter of that was sold between Thanksgiving and X-mas! During most of the year, selling $1000 worth in merchandise is a good day’s work at the store. During the peak of the Christmas shopping frenzy, the mostly volunteer-staffed store was selling at a rate of about $1000 an hour! And as they don’t have much storage space, they were almost continuously unpacking merchandise and stocking the sales floor. And Laura was continuously ordering more stuff. Still, when I saw the store last week, I was amazed to see how depleted it looked! But they set new sales records for the store, both for holiday sales, and for the entire year. Congratulations!

The biggest change for Jacob and Julia last year, I think, was discovering the Horse Ranch where they spend a couple of hours every day after school. While Julia got really serious about learning how to ride – and to ride well – Jacob seems to mostly enjoy playing with his buddies around the Ranch. Julia has won several shows at the Ranch, and she can canter a horse across 3-foot (one-meter-high) obstacles! Jacob has learned how to ride a horse, too, but he is still a bit young for the more advanced stuff.

On my end, my job at Duke changed quite a bit. In addition to all the network stuff and computer security business, I also got to re-design an office suite at Brightleaf Square. I moved my office and the server room, and my co-worker’s office into a new, self-contained office suite. The latter, we just completed in December. So, we’ll see how that shakes out …

A nice perk of my job was being able to sneak out and watch football games last summer, during the Worldcup. As I work with several “dang for’ners” from football nations (England, Germany, Turkey, Togo, Haiti) we had a pretty good contingent over at Satisfaction for some of the games. And the folks at Satisfaction even opened the bar early (at 9:00 AM) several times so we could catch some of the early games (like the Togo games).

The Worldcup was great fun: from the ecstasy of Germany’s win over Argentina to the agony of Togo’s first Worldcup appearance. We saw some wonderful football, especially in the first round, even though real upsets were rare and in the end the Worldcup was dominated by “millionaire football” and somewhat tainted by some really questionable officiating, most painfully noticeable in the Ghana-Brazil game and Australia’s 95th-Minute loss to Italy. And then, of course, there was this unfortunate incident during the very unfortunate Worldcup final.

In the fall of 2006, I started another chapter in my biofuels quest: I completed my biodiesel reactor and began producing biodiesel in the basement. I collect the used fryer oil from several restaurants around Brightleaf Square and process the vegetable oil at home into fuel for my 2002 Jetta TDI. Although this is quite a bit of work, it is very satisfying to reduce my reliance on fossil fuels, produce much less harmful exhaust and safe some money doing it. And it is also a fun, relaxing hobby. As I am typing this, my 200-liter “New Year’s batch” is sitting in the washtank downstairs.

Finally, politics. I mean, I am pretty excited about the fact that the Republican’s lost the congress to the Democrats. Almost more importantly, though, are the implications of this loss to the power of the so-called neocons in the Republican party. Right now, it looks like that in 2008, the “New American Century” will come to an end. Finally. I just really hope that the Democrats manage to re-assert congressional oversight and reintroduce accountability into this corrupt, incompetent administration. And get the US troops out of Iraq ASAP!

I’d say 2006 was pretty good to us. We don’t take this for granted, as we see around us people who had a difficult time, and we certainly are quite aware of all the pain and suffering in the world. Yet, we also see all the hope and generosity around us and we try to contribute to the positive things that go on around us. I am painfully aware of the many serious problems and challenges ahead of us and future generations. But I also see all the energy and hope and strength growing in our children, I can’t help but feel optimistic about the future.

So, thanks to you all for your interest in my blog. I hope 2007 brings you good news and exciting things to do. Feel free to comment and share with us what is going on with you.

Cheers, and a Happy, Prosperous, Healthy 2007!

Jürgen

Yesterday’s execution of Saddam Hussein by hanging brings to a violent end a violent life, and raises many more questions than it answers. What impact will the execution have on the civil war in Iraq andthe suffering of the Iraqis? Why execute him on one of Islam’s most sacred holidays, Eid ul-Adha? Some argue that it is fitting, as he was responsible for many, many deaths of innocent Muslims. Yet, is this not a holiday that celebrates peace, family and forgiveness?

The biggest question Saddam’s demise raises is whether Justice was served. Human Rights Watch has a long track record of criticizing Saddam’s brutal regime, and they also strongly condemn the conduct of the trial and the execution:

Human Rights Watch has for more than 15 years documented the human rights crimes committed by Hussein’s former government, and has campaigned to bring the perpetrators to justice. These crimes include the killing of more than 100,000 Iraqi Kurds in Northern Iraq as part of the 1998 Anfal campaign.

“Saddam Hussein was responsible for massive human rights violations, but that can’t justify giving him the death penalty, which is a cruel and inhuman punishment,” said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program.

The Iraqi High Tribunal sentenced Saddam Hussein and two others to death in November for the killing of 148 men and boys from the town of Dujail in 1982. The tribunal’s statute prohibits, contrary to international law, the possibility of commuting a death sentence. It also requires that the execution take place within 30 days of the final appeal.

Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances. Increasingly, governments are abolishing the death penalty in domestic law.

“The test of a government’s commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders,” said Dicker. “History will judge these actions harshly.”

Human Rights Watch Press Release, December 30, 2006

The United States and its Iraqi helpers had a chance to demonstrate to the world a “new, improved Iraq” that respects justice and human rights. Not surprisingly that was not accomplished, and the hanging of Saddam now serves as a showcase of what is wrong with the “new” Iraq, and serves as a new focus for the Iraqi resistance. They will proclaim Saddam Hussein a martyr and that will likely lead to more bloodshed in this brutal civil war. That is very tragic.

Personally, if Saddam’s death were to stop the killing of innocent people in Iraq, I would have very little trouble with it. But it’s more likely to escalate the bloodshed precisely because of the terrible way in which the trial was conducted and the way his execution was rushed.

Frohe Weihnachten and happy Winter Solstice. This is is the best part about Christmas: it’s the afternoon of December 24 and the stores close. Finally! The insanity of the annual shopping season is over. There is one good step toward peace on earth: the malls and shopping centers close for a day-and-a-half.

In a good part of the Northern Hemisphere it’s Winter, the “dark and cold season” so naturally for ages people had the desire to gather around a fire, a stove, a … TV, and turn on some extra lights to expel the dreariness of Winter. The Christian holiday is the most prominent one of these winter festivals, but not the only one.

In our time, there are many layers of meaning and symbolism attached to Christmas, from its pre-Christian roots (Yule, Saturnalia) to the contemporary preoccupation with worshiping the gods of consumerism. The significance to Christians of celebrating the birth of the Messiah on December 25 is also not un-controversial.

Personally, I could not care less about any of this. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas I stay away from and major shopping establishments. We get a tree from a local non-profit and decorate it with decorations that are either home made or fair trade. And one string of lights. We get some presents for the kids and Laura cooks a feast. Then, on Christmas, we celebrate our family. this year we also have some friends and family over.

Happy Global Orgasm for Peace Day! What a wacky idea …

The Global Orgasm for Peace certainly has the same winking cleverness, but it also invites us to consider the power of collective thought. Does what we think really effect anything?

The project’s Web site points to the work of another group, the Global Consciousness Project, which is trying to answer that question. Directed by Dr. Roger Nelson, the GCP is a volunteer group of researchers from various disciplines, whose goal is to find out whether collective thought can be measured and scientifically validated.

Celebrate Global Orgasm for Peace Day, by Liz Langley, AlterNet. Posted December 22, 2006.

Happy Hannukkah!

Frohes Lichterfest!

Get your dreidels out and fry some latkes: Today at sundown Jews began to celebrate the eight days of Hannukkah.

The holiday was called Hanukkah meaning “dedication” because it marks the re-dedication of the Temple after its desecration under Antiochus IV. Spiritually, Hanukkah commemorates the Miracle of the Oil. According to the Talmud, at the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem following the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire, there was only enough consecrated olive oil to fuel the eternal flame in the Temple for one day. Miraculously, the oil burned for eight days – which was the length of time it took to press, prepare and consecrate new oil.”

(Wikipedia, 12/15/06)

Tom Philpott (Grist) questions entomologist and biofuels skeptic extraordinaire David Pimentel (Cornell) about why crop-based energy won’t work. Interesting interview, but Pimentel does need to get out a bit more. And I wish Philpott had been a bit more probing on some of Pimentel’s assertions – like this one:

Pimentel: Conserve! One word. And no one talks about it, including the environmentalists.

Is he just yanking our chains??!! No one else talks about conservation?? He’s joking, right?

This is an interesting exchange:

Philpott: So if we converted 100 percent of a year’s worth of solar energy stored in plant matter to fuel, we’d only supply half of our current energy consumption. What’s that telling us?

Pimentel: It’s telling us we’re using too goddamn much fossil energy! And another thing it tells us is that you’re not going to be self-sufficient, or even produce half of our energy from biomass in the U.S., if we want to eat.

Yeah – thanks, Dr. P – I realize now you do need a PH.D. to figure out we’re using too much fossil fuel!

Interestingly however, Pimentel is very pro-organic:

“Pimentel: I don’t want to say that organic can supply all the food in the world, but it can be much more sustainable than conventional ag and just as productive.”

Biofuels Are an Environmental Dead End, Alternet, By Tom Philpott, Grist Magazine. Posted December 13, 2006.

What annoys me about Pimentel, is his focus on the problems. He finds that the numbers don’t seem to work, so he discounts a solution. He seems to be in favor of solar energy, which is great, but solar won’t help us run the trucks and trains that carry us and our good across the country. That does not mean we should ignore solar energy. It just means we need different solutions for different applications. But Pimentel acts as if alternative fuels advocates suggest that the entire energy input of the US should be covered by soy or corn.

Solving the sustainable-energy puzzle will require many different pieces, and solar, biofuels and conservation are some of the big pieces. Pointing out the lousy energy balances in ethanol is not particularly helpful. How about helping solve the problem? How about putting that Cornell-educated mind to work and help figure out how to make fuels that grow back in a more efficient way?

CSU announced a partnership with Solix Biofuels to get serious about commercializing technology that can produce huge amounts of very oily types of algae for biofuels production. “Algae are the fastest growing organisms on the planet, and can produce 100 times more oil per acre than conventional soil-tilled crops that are now being grown for biofuel use,” said Solix founder Jim Sears. I would love to see some real numbers as to how much energy input 50 Gallons of algae oil require. My guess is that it should be much lower than soy or canola. Biofuels from micro-organisms like algae has great potential for being a huge piece in the sustainable-energy puzzle.

The high density of the production allows for great capacity, and their production does not compete with human food production. Algae are also much less likely to provide incentive for the destruction of wildlife habitat, like palm oil. Yet, it’s not easy to grow the organisms:

“It’s very difficult to grow algae,” said Cary Bullock, CEO of Greenfuel Technologies, a startup developing a technology to turn smokestack emissions into ethanol and biodiesel (…).

Mr. Bullock described the process: First, you need a distributed light source to get light past the top layer of algae and deeper into the ponds. One you solve that problem, you discover that the algae runs out of food. To increase the food supply, you have to make significant changes to the nursery system. And once you’ve done that, you have to manage heat.

“Two of those problems would be difficult, but all four together are quite a problem,” he said, adding that Greenfuel expects to solve the problems with solutions it’s developing.
Biofuels Smackdown: Algae vs. Soybeans, Red Herring, December 7, 2006

The Red Herring title frames the issue a bit stupidly as a competition, but the story actually gives a pretty good overview of algae in the biofuels-feedstock discussion. From a technical standpoint, the feedstock question is evolutionary, not competitive. Over time, we will need to come up with more efficient feedstock. But of course this is also a highly political discussion – just ask the ASA.

Today I got my Wash Pro Stainless Steel Washer & Dryer from Utah Biodiesel Supply and I installed it on one of my wash tanks, where I had been bubble washing my latest batch for about a week. The washwater was still a bit soapy, but it looked like it was pretty well done. I drained it and used the Wash Pro to add fresh was water. Then I hooked up the wash tank to the pump and recirculated the wash water spraying it on the biodiesel. The pump is pretty strong and after about 15 Minutes all the water was totally blended with the biodiesel. There was no separation at all. I let it settle for an hour and did it again. After the second go-around the water was completely white with soap! That is totally amazing. This little bit of stainless steel is going to make a big difference in the quality of my fuel – at least as far as the soap is concerned.

Just how bad the effects of the soap actually are is not totally clear to me. Daniel Sheedy of Environment Australia, argues it’s no big deal at all (see section 6.16). I don’t think it can be good for the performance of the fuel.

My latest batch of biodiesel is looking pretty good. I washed it all week. I even built another washtank (left). Maybe tomorrow I’ll start drying part of the batch. There is no hurry – I still have about 30 gallons in stock.

Yesterday, after I built the new washtank, I filled it up with 25 gallons of biodiesel and another 15-or-so gallons of water, when I noticed that the damn tank was leaking all over the floor. Quickly I rigged up the pump, hooked it up to the tank and began pumping everything into the other tank. But the pump whipped the soapy water into an emulsion and could not move it! So I had to empty the contents into buckets and dump he buckets into the other tank! UGH!

When I fixed the leak today, I tightened the PVC adapter too much and broke it. I saw I still had a black iron 2” nipple, so I used that. Turns out that the iron nipple with the PVC ball valve works much better than the all-PVC business (right tank). It’s much sturdier.

(two more pics below the fold)

Read the rest of this entry »

How many types of computer networks do you know? There is the most common TCP/IP networking, across copper, fiber or wireless (very likely that is what you are using to read this page). IPv6 is the new kid on the block, and some may remember the old stuff, like Tokenring and IPX, and when all else fails, good, old sneakernet is never down! Now there is also DieselNET. On DieselNET, data take the bus – no not the SCSI bus! The BUS, as in public transportation! No joke! In this implementation of a packet-switched network protocol, the data are ferried across town by hitching a ride on the buses of the Amherst PVTA transportation system.

The University of Massachusetts at Amherst Diverse Outdoor Mobile Environment (DOME) Project is researching technology for disruption tolerant networking (DTN) systems (via NetworkWorld).

DieselNet currently consists of 40 buses each with a Diesel Brick, which is based on a HaCom Open Brick computer (P6-compatible 577Mhz CPU, 256MB RAM, 40GB hard drive, Linux OS). The brick is connected to three radios: an 802.11b Access Point (AP) to provide DHCP access to passengers and passersby, a second USB-based 802.11b interface that constantly scans the surrounding area for DHCP offers and other buses, and a longer-range MaxStream XTend 900MHz radio to connect to our throwboxes. Additionally, a GPS device records times and locations. Our custom software allows us to push out application updates, take mobility, AP-to-bus connectivity, and bus-to-bus throughput traces.

UMass Amherst – DOME website, Nov. 23, 2006

The idea here is to create systems that can route messages without knowing exactly where the message is going, because most nodes are only up for limited amounts of time (an average of 20 percent on DieselNET). So when two nodes are in range, they query each other for the other nodes they are likely to encounter along the route, and they pass messages along based on that information.

Why bother? Well, for one, DARPA has money for this kind of research. And I am sure the military has all kinds of ideas for implementations. Imagine a couple of dozen/hundred/thousand nodes (people who carry a wireless computer or robot/rover devices). If these nodes were moving about in more or less predictable ways, and not scattered too widely, a DTN could relay messages within that group within seconds from one end to another and failures of individual nodes have very little impact on the system as a whole. You can see, perhaps, why the military might be interested in this idea. But I think there might be also very useful civilian uses, like in disaster recovery, exploration of extreme environments (space, under water) and maybe in regular communications.

BTW: if these folks have their way, DieselNET should really be BiodieselNET!

A year ago today Angela Merkel succeeded Gerhard Schröder and became the first female chancellor and the first chancellor from the former East Germany. I was not thrilled. She is a political protegé of Helmut Kohl, aka Birne, the corrupt, corporatist pigdog chancellor from hell of the 80s.

Yet, 2006 so far was a pretty good year for Germany: the Worlcup was a huge success and is thought to have produced quite an economic boost; unemployment is down and the federal government is less in the red than last year. The country was riding a wave of patriotic bliss this summer, during and after the Worldcup. But Ms. Merkel has been unable to harness any of these good news and her approval ratings are not particularly good.

The main issue that drags them down is the inability of Merkel and her “grand coalition” of Germany’s two major parties to pull off a meaningful reform of the countries vast network of entitlement programs. And Germany has problems with a growing tide of hate, racism and antisemitism – especially in the east.

Internationally, Germany has to figure out if it wants to be a “major player” and commit troops to more dangerous assignments in “nationbuilding” efforts, like in southern Afghanistan and “peacekeping” missions like in Lebanon. If so, there has to be a clear commitment to such missions, AND there has to be political leadership that creates the environment that properly supports such missions. Otherwise the military will be stuck in impossible missions without a clear mandate. Merkel’s administration has shown little leadership in this issue.

Leadership. A vision for the country. That’s what is needed. Schröder is a flamboyant, somewhat charismatic leader. Merkel is none of that. But neither has shown a clear vision for Germany. Schröder was just worried about his career. And Merkel? what makes her tick? I think that Gemany needs some reforms and a real vision for a truly unified country. Germany does not need to be a “global player” – the country needs to get its house in order. Is Merkel the leader to bring Germany on track for unity, prosperity and social justice? So far I don’t see that.