IPhone and the others

IPhone seems to be a big success and every mobil phone producer is trying to find an appropriate answer. Some of them are slowly realizing on of the main advantages of the IPhone: lack of keyboard.
Yes, I mean it. Take a look at BlackBerry. It is big, the keyboard takes one half of the space and it is not even a good keyboard. Since there is a limit on the size of the phone (the size of the pockets in the suit), the screen has to be smaller if the keyboard is bigger. Yet, what for do you use a phone? I'm willing to bet that most people primarily read (and thus need big, clear screen), and maybe type a few short answers to the emails. Most email, blog posts and memos are written on the computer.
The phone is just a way to keep up with the recent developments when you are on a run (bus, train,...) and do not have access to the computer. Trying to create a reasonable good keyboard is pointless. The price is too high - smaller screen or bulkier phone.
I'm happy that somebody understood, let's just hope others will copy (as it is well known, the imitation is the sincerest form of flattery) soon and there will be choice for the consumers.
P.S. I'm not saying that the Apple was the first to completely give up on the physical keyboard, it just probably happens to be most successful one. Probably, as we know, good ideas do not always succeed at first...

Why oh Why?

Tyler Cowen:"The problem with realists is they can get depressed and feel they are not going anywhere.." via Marginal Revolution.

My feelings exactly...

International solution to the global warming

Let's assume that there is the global warming, that it is a problem, and that humans can solve it by reducing the emissions of CO2 (or something else). Also, let's assume that we know how much of CO2 the humans on this planet can produce to reduce the problem (Ideally, you would need to know costs and benefits to choose the appropriate level of emissions).
These are all strong assumptions, but let's say they are all satisfied. The tough question is, how do you reach a global/international agreement that will lead to enforcement of the right level of emissions? It is a very difficult thing to do, because poor countries want to grow (we did not care about emissions during technical and scientific revolution, which made our progress much faster, so why should they?), rich countries do not want to reduce their living standards (which would be an effect of a significant reduction in emissions). Morally, you cannot simply cap the emission on some historical levels - this is pure nonsense that would make poor countries poor forever. There has to be a solution that will allow smooth transition, allow poor countries to grow and rich countries to slowly adjust to the new requirements.
I believe there is. And it seems surprisingly simple. Take the right amount of emissions of CO2 and divide it by the number of people (according to UN or whatever). This is what every country can produce. Establish world market for these "permissions". Establish a system of enforcement (this is tough, too, but has to be part of every system). Voila!
Currently, the poor countries produce less emission that they are entitled to, so they can sell extra permissions to rich countries who produce (probably) more than they should. As the poor countries will grow, they will be selling less of these permissions. And as rich countries will finish their investments into low-emission technologies, they will need less of them.
The system would start best if there is a cushion, that is if we(all people) produce about the same amount of emission we should. Otherwise, some transition system (say small reduction every year till the "right" amount is reached) needs to be established.
Such system would, I believe, solve many problems and seems enforceable/acceptable (depending on reduction needed by rich countries) and also helps poor countries to get richer! This might help to solve poverty (hunger,...) problems, too!
It seems to me that such system would be superior to anything I heard so far. Will see whether somebody will come with something similar on the international level (or whether I will find a mistake in the idea).

Prague

At a local meeting of Fulbright Association in San Diego today, I talked to about 10 of ex-Fulbright scholars, mostly US citizen. Every single one of them visited Prague! They, of course, liked it.

The next small thing

Many people are trying to predict the "next big thing" - the invention that will change our world like computers, internet or mobile phones did. The successful ones will undoubtedly make big money on it.
But I have notice many small "big things" that are less known, probably less important yet very helpful, too. For example LED lights and reflective materials.LED lights are interesting because they have very large expected lifetime (around 100,000 hours) and they are very effective (no heat is generated). Notably, most trucks in the US use them already; they are also used in the street lights everywhere. The reflective materials are used on many things - street signs for better visibility in night, clothes etc. They are able to reflect the very little light that hits them back to the source (I'm not sure I understand how they work in detail), which makes them VERY visible in night.
The combination of these two is cool, too. I was riding a bike with a LED light that lasts more than 20 hours with three small AAA batteries, while generating so much light. And all street signs and warnings were so visible I did not have to be afraid of riding of the road etc.
These small things are pretty much trivial, right? Yet they improved our lives significantly for better, in certain areas.
This makes me wonder what will come next. Big hopes are on the carbon nanotubes, but something else might come first. For example, the mechanism by which certain plants (like water lilies) keep themselves clean using only water seems to be understood, allowing it to be replicated in factories. The secret lies in a special structure of their surface that makes cleaning very simple (using water and no pressure). Image the possibilities - easy to clean kitchen, shoes, cars, walls that can be cleaned from the dust or graffiti with just water hose.
This or any other small thing will not change the way we live (LEDs did not either), but it can make life much easier.

Facebook

And while I'm at bashing IT companies and their services, I have an advice: Do Not Use Facebook! Read why, maybe you will learn something. I did.

(Diet) Coke

I was never a fan of "Diet" things. However, when the hormone of youth (no kidding) starts to fading out and body fat starts to kicking in, it would seems like a good idea if the taste were not too bad. The first soda I had here was Pepsi Diet Black Cherry and French Vanilla. No sugar, but tastes like syrup (sweet, but ok). Also other "diet" cokes do not taste much worse.
And the most surprising thing is that when people have choice (at lunches when everything is free), the diet sodas are gone first. Mind boggling...

ICQ -> Jabber

My patience with ICQ/AOL is over. You can read at root.cz why, but that is not important. If you want to talk to me, get either jabber account (mine is myslivec at njs.netlab.cz) at Jabbim.cz or anywhere else. You can also use Google Talk (via Gmail.com to contact me at myslivec at gmail dot com. I'm not going to use ICQ anymore, even though I might reply to your messages if I receive them.
This is a take-it-or-leave-it offer. If you don't like, don't talk to me. It is stupid to use ICQ anyway, so I'm in fact making you a favor. You are welcome.

E-voting

The great idea of E-voting is spoiled by corrupt and/or incompetent politicians, as article and its predecessors document. I can understand that the voting system (purely paper ballot, hand counting) can be problematic in country where a significant share of population does not speak English and some 200m people might come to the elections. So the proposed solution is the "paper trail", when the machine taking your electronic vote will print on a trail of paper your choice. This is obviously absurd, because you can get to know who voted for whom simply by knowing the order of people.
Ok, so lets fix it. The E-machine has to print something, but it should not be in fixed order. So what about e-machine printing your ballot on a paper. You will take this paper, check whether it looks ok (is there a name of the guy you wanted to vote for?) and put it into the box (the same we put paper ballots now). This combines the advantages of e-voting (immediate results, easy voting) with verifiability of the "correctness" of the results - you can randomly select machines for "recount". This itself can be very fast, because paper have nothing written on them, everything is printed, so OCR can achieve VERY high precision.
This clearly cannot be path-breaking idea. So why I have never read about it?

Motivation

Lara Shipley via Megan McArdle:
"No one would ever do anything if they realized how much they suck."