Lately some of us have posted lists of excellent papers and essays relating to the Internet and protocols -- here's the Stanford CS 444I reading list along the same lines, by Armando Fox.

Health care systems are incredibly hard to understand, yet people feel very strongly about them. Most Canadians will swear up and down that single-payer is better, the only socially acceptable alternative, and that it makes people healthier at lower cost. (At the same time, Canadians will grip about government cuts in healthcare, waiting lists, administrative snafus, their doctor). Yet most Canadians haven't experienced any other system so it must be the media that's forming their impressions.

The media, of course, is very bad at conveying complex nuanced system characteristics. I was recently pointed at an article with the headline For-Profit Hospitals Cost More. Cost more to whom? To the patient? To the tax-payer? One of the reason that for-profit hospitals cost more, the article says, is because they pay taxes, so presumably the tax-payer carries some of the burden of non-profit hospitals. And why would one believe that this had any relevance for the Canadian debate? It's quite possible that both for-profit and non-profit hospitals are more effective than government-run hospitals. Not that we can agree on what 'effective' means, anyway.

The more I learn about this, the less I know. I have seen government inefficiencies in the Canadian system -- my grandparents don't get their choice of doctor, even if they don't like their doctor, because they live in a small community and they see the doctor they're told to see. They can't drive a little farther, change plans, or pay more (or differently) no matter how much they dislike their doctor. But I've seen lots of inefficiencies surrounding the American insurance system too, particularly the employer-mediated stuff and the requirements for documentation of prior insurance or pre-existing conditions. I don't know. It all makes me unhappy, and suspect that healthcare is simply an intractable, money-wasting or unfair system, no matter how you slice it.

Another knit project finished: a circular spiral shawl in hand-painted wool. More details can be found on my knit stuff page.

I love it -- a focus on good news, including items on whether women are worse drivers, Iraqis protesting against Iraqi violence, diabetes research progress, and more. (Link via Instapundit.)

From a Jim Fawcette article (link via Scobleizer):

Blind studies show that users can't distinguish between search results from Google, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo, and Teoma. Yet when you put a logo on the page, users show a decided preference for Google. To me, that totally debunks the idea that Google's search algorithms built on the professional-journal-references model is the key to its success. As The Wall Street Journal's Lee Gomes put it: "Some say Google is the Rolls-Royce of search; maybe what it really is, is the Nike. Googlephiles may think they are exhibiting technical sophistication by their loyalty, but what they are really proving is the extent to which they have been conditioned to respond to logos and brands, just like street kids with their sneakers." (ref)

I can't get at the blind study information, unfortunately -- Fawcette's link is to a WSJ subscription article. Anybody got a pointer for me? I'd like to figure out if it was just the logo added to the page that made the difference, not any other formatting. To me, it seems the primary suckage of the MSN search engine was its interface (which is now, oddly, much like that of Google's). So it's not so surprising that by slapping the same interface on results from different engines meant users couldn't distinguish. There are other possible explanations too, besides pure brand loyalty.

I've been thinking for a while about why people are so often so hostile to economics (it's called the "dismal science"), and I'm not the only one. One theory has it that commerce now typically involves non-tribe members (or even non-human, as with our banks' ATMs and Internet orders). That seems to be more a hostility towards modern scalable commerce, although I can see how that would transfer sometimes to economic arguments or prescriptions relating to international trade or similar topics. Another theory is that people just don't understand it (no exposure in early schooling) therefore fear it. A third theory has it that, in part, left-leaning people fear that learning economics (or indeed, lending it any credence) turns people into conservatives!

As a Canadian living in the US, it often distresses me greatly how little Americans know about the proud history of their northern neighbour (not to mention our spelling). Here's a good beginning on Canadian Facts.

Grab the nearest book.

Open the book to page 23.

Find the fifth sentence.

Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

OK then:

However you should be careful about creating transports or bridges as it may violate the usage policies for foreign services.

Hard to tell what kind of book this is, right? It's "Instant Messaging in Java" by Iain Shigeoka which I happen to have at work.

I found this on Ted's blog and Ted references Danah Boyd... There's a certain etiquette in the blogosphere which is to credit where you got something like this. But neither Ted nor Ted's creditee invented this so I started following links because I wanted to find out "why". Ted Leung (apr 25) credited Danah Boyd (apr 18) credited Caterina (apr 11) credited David Chess (apr 11) credited long story short pier (apr 8) credited Elkin (apr 8) credited happy_potterer (apr 8) credited sternel (apr 7), who credited nobody in the post itself. The really bizarre thing is that after following this chain I looked at the comments for Sternel's post and somebody else posted a comment asking where Sternel got it from. So, onward: in the comments Sternel credits pegkerr (apr 8), credits kijjohnson (apr 7) credits mckitterick (apr 7) credits bobhowe (apr 7) credits both silvertide (apr 6) and curmudgeon (apr 6). Silvertide credits curmudgeon too. Curmudgeon credits kricker (apr 6) credits cynnerth (apr 6) and pbsage. PBSage also credits Cynnerth. Cynnerth credits seamusd whose journal I can't see. But now I can see the other self-acknowledged geek trying to track back this meme. Apparently it originated with some "find page 18, look at the fourth line" live journal post from who knows who.

Google has "about 15700" links for the search for "Find the fifth sentence" (in quotes) -- all of them blog entries with exactly this meme.

There's new knitted stuff up today, for those of you who follow what I make outside of work. I like browsing other people's knitting blogs (there are hundreds of these in this ring alone), which is why I try to do the minimum of taking photos of my stuff and describing the project at least once. Other knitting bloggers do nearly day-by-day progress reports which I enjoy but can't possibly do if I'm going to find time to knit too!

As always, I love a good counter-intuitive argument. Here's one that claims that bicycle lanes are more dangerous for bikers.

I've been researching a lot of technology and tools lately, comparing solutions and learning principles. Most of it's reading, but I'm finding that friends have interesting stuff to say. So I thought I'd do a post on the subject(s) in case I'm not thinking of the right friends to ask the right questions of they can tell me so.

• Peer-to-peer communication models, frameworks, toolkits: JXTA, Rendezvous, Howl and Jedi.
  


• Python libraries for WebDAV and IMAP support: Twisted and Python standard libraries
  


• Replication and synchronization: basic master/slave pattern, master/master pattern, RSync, RSync over HTTP, OceanStore, How to Select a Replication Protocol, the HTTP Distribution and Replication Protocol, HARP, State Replication Protocol, MoteFS, SyncML, problems in treating distributed data as if it were local (Notes on Distributed Computing), Coda (Disconnected Operations in a Distributed FS).
  


• How to do engineering task management: bug dbs, Project, Excel files, other...
  


• Good IDEs that support Python: boa constrictor, pyEclipse, pydev, TruStudio, Wing.
  


• Permissions solutions: WebDAV ACLs, IMAP ACLs, LDAP ACLs, NFS ACLs; Secure Interaction Design, Capabilities v. ACLs, WebDAV tickets (capabilities), Capability theory, Protecting Information,
  

Inspired by Ted and the people Ted linked to, I'm also thinking of putting together a post on influential software/CS papers. Maybe tomorrow.

I gave a rough WebDAV tutorial Tuesday at OSAF. Here are the slides. There's also something new on my knit stuff page.

I have just finished knitting a new thing - a lacy skirt knit with ribbon yarn. It's pictured at the top of my knitted stuff page.

The Subway diet got a lot of press, much of it from Subway itself, of course -- eat a low-fat 6-inch sub for lunch, and a foot-long one for dinner, and lose weight. It may have inspired the more negative McDonalds diet, in which a documentary director decided to eat only at McDonald's for a month. His rules included that if the counter staff suggested that he super-size something he would, and he would eat everything he ordered.

Spurlock had the idea for the film on Thanksgiving Day 2002, slumped on his mother's couch after eating far too much. He saw a news item about two teenage girls in New York suing McDonald's for making them obese. The company responded by saying their food was nutritious and good for people. Is that so, he wondered? To find out, he committed himself to his 30 days of Big Mac bingeing.

"If there's one thing we could accomplish with the film, it is that we make people think about what they put in their mouth," he said. "So the next time you do go into a fast-food restaurant and they say, 'Would you like to upsize that?' you think about it and say, 'Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll stick with the medium this time.'

Does he really think every time fast food chains offer to supersize or upsize, that customers agree to it? And if so, that they eat every bite? If they did, it would be no surprise if they gained 25 pounds, as Spurlock did, and had a skyrocketing cholesterol level. Note that he also limited his exercise during this period, although I would think simply eating far beyond the point where you feel full, several meals a day, would be the root cause for the bad effects he experienced. In other words, it's not the food itself but the quantity -- he ate an average of $28 worth of food each day, which (according to the price info I could find) means at least seven Big-mac value meals a day!

A different McDonald's month diet with different rules could easily have a very different result. I tend to agree with this woman who believes she can eat only at McDonald's for a month and lose weight. Her rules are pretty flexible but they definitely don't require her to super-size or eat every bite. Or to look at it another way, I suspect if I ate $28 worth of even Fresh Choice meals every day (particularly the pasta, muffins, etc) for 30 days I'd also gain weight.

An important news release today on Jabber.org about XCP...

It makes sense that cars have brake lights and turn signals. But why stop there? There's more information I'd like to have about the driver in front of me, and much of it can automatically be generated.

• The "I haven't used my turn signal in five years" signal. This warns me that the driver is likely to merge into my lane without warning.


• The "coffee cup in use" indicator, hooked up to the driver's side cup holder, turns on for five seconds after the cup has been removed from the holder, to warn me to watch out for violent swerves due to hot liquid spills.


• The "child in car" light turns on when the child seat is occupied (clearly this requires modified child seats with radio signals and weight detectors). Now I know if the parent is likely to weave back and forth as they reach back and try to pick up the needed toy.


• The "music volume" indicator tells me if the driver is likely to be listening to overly loud music and have their foot too heavy on the pedal -- and unable to hear me honk.

Clearly these indicators would improve public safety, and since we know there's no cost too high to save a child's life I expect these improvements will be adopted immediately.

Ooh, I finished something new-- the seaweed stole! Eric S. thinks it looks like an octopus when I'm holding it in my lap and the ends hang down. I'm going to finish a skirt too before I start something new. More pics on my knits page.

John Klensin & I have been talking about how to use Jabber/XMPP and AIM (or other IM systems) with one client running, instead of two. John compiled some recommendations on that after our discussions and his experimentation, and was kind enough to let me adapt that for this post. Note that XMPP is Jabber's standardized cousin, which many Jabber implementors are moving to. For clarity I'll call both Jabber because the two are compatible.

There are two basic approaches to single-client multi-protocol IM support:

• Use a client that supports many protocols natively. I've used Trillian to do this on Windows systems, and was happy enough to pay the $25 for Trillian Pro so that I could run the Jabber plugin within Trillian. On a Macintosh, I've started using Fire, which is free and just works (for Jabber connections, just put the whole JID (user@example.com) in the buddy "name" field.)


• Use a client that supports Jabber natively, and a server that gateways to the other services. For example, Exodus is a focused Jabber client (it does a good job of supporting Jabber rooms which is not too common yet), and it also allows you to talk to AIM/Yahoo users through a gateway if your Jabber server has gateways.

The first problem with gateways is usability. It's hard to sort out what address to use so that a gateway understands who you want to talk to. Then, once you connect, the user on the other end sees a mangled addres for you -- one that the gateway invented so it could handle a number of users and receive their messages and route them properly. When setting up buddy permission, the other user might see a confusing message about adding you to their buddy list because not all systems have the same semantics for this step. Then once you're on each others' buddy lists, presence information might get miscommunicated. (John had some tips for getting this to work, which I put at the bottom of this post).

The second problem with gateways is privacy (or security). The way AIM and Yahoo are designed means that the gateway has to connect as you -- AIM and Yahoo weren't designed to have servers involved that aren't their direct control. So you have to tell the gateway your account and password information for it to impersonate you.

Many in the XMPP/Jabber community think gateways are the way to go in the long run, despite the usability and security problems. Here are a few reasons:

• It's a lot of work to write a client that supports so many protocols. Coding/design effort has to go into handling all the protocols, rather than good user experience. The client may not be free after so much work -- take Trillian pro for example. But even if you're paying for Trillian Pro, its developers/designers decided not to handle all of the features of all of the systems Trillian connects to. For example, Yahoo supports an "invisible" mode, but even though Trillian connects directly to Yahoo using your Yahoo account it won't set you to "invisible".


• It's a lot of user work to maintain two to six different accounts, which means identities, and juggle them all. What happens when I use AOL, Yahoo and Jabber with Fire, and I want to connect to a friend that uses AOL, MSN and Jabber with Trillian. Do we use AOL or Jabber? Which one works best? Do I have two listings for my friend in case one is unavailable?


• The protocols used by AOL and Yahoo IM change frequently. Every time that happens, Trillian and Fire users have to upgrade their client software. It's less of a burden overall to upgrade a gateway that serves hundreds or thousands of users, than to upgrade all those users clients.


• In the long run, the hope is that all IM systems will accept that IM is an Internet-wide system, not controlled by any one company. When AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo accept this, they'll start to migrate their systems towards the IETF standards that have already been put in place for IM addressing and for standard presence information formats. Then gateways will work a lot better, without so many hacks for address translation and presence information translation.

John's tips for gatewaying with Exodus
John just got gatewaying working with Exodus and documented his steps.

• First, find a Jabber server that supports gatewaying. Not all of them do -- e.g. "jabber.org" doesn't do gatewaying. If you've already got a Jabber ID on a non-gatewaying server, you can keep it there and use a different server for gatewaying, but John doesn't recommend that -- there will be some availability hiccups as you now depend on two servers being up, not just one.


• Next, you need to define and register with each gateway service first, the process that involves supplying your identity and password for that service and binding it to your Jabber ID.


• Finally, to create a new buddy through a gateway, you have to put the transport type ("AIM" or whatever) in the "Contact type" field, the handle or screen name (only) in the "Contact ID" field, and the server name (in foo.bar form, not aim.foo.bar) into the "Gateway server" field. That results in a Jabber ID of ContactID@aim.foo.bar, but this shouldn't be a user issue.

Yaron posted an article on why he chose LinkedIn over Orkut, when he decided to only use one personal-connections site. My reasons for choosing only Orkut and not LinkedIn -- although for the same basic reason that I can only handle upkeep on one, not two -- are much more frivolous. Basically, Orkut looked more fun, sleeker, and more experimental. Since I use these services for a while until I get bored and then stop visiting, I look for a transitory entertainment value rather than a long-term career or business advantage.

Friends asked me to post my Korea travelogue, so here it is. I'll link in some of the more interesting pics if I get time.