When you come, it brims
Red and trembling with blood,
Heart's blood for your drinking;
To fill your mouth with love
And the bitter-sweet taste of a soul.

Back to the world of blogging. Time to get Winds moving again.

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The biologically based solar cells, which convert light into electrical energy, should be efficient and cheap to manufacture, says co-creator Marc Baldo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They could even be used to coat and power laptops, providing a portable source of green energy. Baldo's team isolated a variety of photosynthetic proteins from spinach and sandwiched them between two layers of conducting material. When light was shone on to the tiny cell, an electrical current was generated. Their discovery is reported in Nano Letters.

Read The Rest Scale: 2.5 out of 5 for more detail, as interested.

And Then It Woke Up.

"Genetic algorithms" for networking.

To tackle the challenge, Pablo Funes of US company Icosystem and Jürgen Branke and Frederik Theil of the University of Karlsruhe in Germany used "genetic algorithms", which mimic Darwinian evolution, to develop strategies for internet servers to use when caching data. Using a simulation they were able to improve download speeds over existing caching schemes.

[...]

Funes told New Scientist the scheme could eventually be used to allow caches to automatically "evolve" their configuration. "Further development could involve different rules suited to each individual host or subnet involved in the internet," says Funes. "One can even imagine each host evolving its own optimal rule."

[...]

The key to finding an efficient algorithm was "evolving" it from a population of randomly generated ones. The starting population of algorithms was tested on the simulator using randomly generated requests.

[...]

When tested on a simulated network of 300 intersections, or "nodes", the algorithms they developed were twice as fast as the best existing strategy.

"It is quite neat," says Jon Crowcroft, at the UK's Cambridge University. "The novelty lies in the rather 'inelegant' algorithm that they evolve."

But Funes admits there are limitations. An important consideration is what incentives there are for caching information for other users. He suggests networks might in the future be designed to work out who deserves the most help for themselves. "Sophisticated network behaviours might implement rules for reciprocity and trust," he says. "And conversely, for not cooperating with other others who try to abuse our resources."

Warning: do not attach to any missile-controlling systems at home. Check your system to see if it is named "Colossus" or "Skynet"; if so, alternative methodologies are recommended.

Read The Rest Scale: 2.5 out of 5 as interested.

Then The Machines Put Us In Pods

Ah, those lovely patents.

Microsoft, that imperialist of the information-technology world, has actually succeeded in patenting the human body as a computer network. US Patent 6,754,472, issued to the company on June 22nd, is for a “method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body”.

[...]

What Microsoft is proposing is to use the skin's own conductive properties to transmit the data needed to create such a network. And the firm does not stop at people. A “wide variety of living animals”, it says, could be used to create computer buses, as they are known technically, in this manner.

[...]

If such gizmos were networked, it would be possible to have, say, just one keypad for a mobile phone, an MP3 music player and a PDA. The keypad might even be a person's forearm. As the patent puts it, “The physical resistance offered by the human body can be used in implementing a keypad or other input device as well as estimating distances between devices and device locations. In accordance with the present invention, by varying the distance on the skin between the contacts corresponding to different keys, different signal values can be generated representing different inputs.” In other words you can, in theory, type on your skin. Microsoft suggests using the body to generate power for the network, too. A “kinetic power converter” in the wearer's shoe or wristwatch would produce electricity in the same way that an old-fashioned self-winding watch extracted energy from its owner's normal movements.

[...]

Some of the features of Microsoft's PAN would put off even the most avid technophile—the most obvious being the problem of how the electronic devices it links up are themselves to be attached to the body. The patent suggests a pair of electrodes, attached to the skin, for each device. The trade-off between eliminating redundant input/output devices and the inconvenience of having to attach dozens of electrodes to your skin does not obviously favour the latter. Still, you have to admire them for trying.

You laugh now.

Read The Rest Scale: 2 out of 5.

And rounding out this tech post:

It's The Real Thing.

Sir, is that can of Coke secure?

There's a new security threat at some of the nation's military bases — and it looks uncannily like a can of Coke. Specially rigged Coke cans, part of a summer promotion, contain cell phones and global positioning chips. That has officials at some installations worried the cans could be used to eavesdrop, and they are instituting protective measures. Coca-Cola says such concerns are nothing but fizz.

Mart Martin, a Coca-Cola spokesman, said no one would mistake one of the winning cans from the company's "Unexpected Summer" promotion for a regular Coke.

"The can is dramatically different looking," he said. The cans have a recessed panel on the outside and a big red button. "It's very clear that there's a cell phone device."

Winners activate it by pushing the button, which can only call Coke's prize center, he said. Data from the GPS device can only be received by Coke's prize center. Prizes include cash, a home entertainment center and an SUV.

"It cannot be an eavesdropping device," he said.

Nonetheless, military bases, including the U.S. Army Armor Center at Fort Knox, Kentucky, are asking soldiers to examine their Coke cans before bringing them in to classified meetings.

"We're asking people to open the cans and not bring it in if there's a GPS in it," said Master Sgt. Jerry Meredith, a Fort Knox spokesman. "It's not like we're examining cans at the store. It's a pretty commonsense thing."

Sue Murphy, a spokeswoman for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, said personal electronic devices aren't permitted in some buildings and conference rooms on base.

"We've taken measures to make sure everyone's aware of this contest and to make sure devices are cleared before they're taken in" to restricted areas, she said. "In the remote possibility a can were found in one of these areas, we'd make sure the can wasn't activated, try to return it to its original owner and ask that they activate it at home," she said. "It's just another measure we have to take to keep everyone out here safe and secure."

The Marine Corps said all personnel had been advised of the cans and to keep them away from secure areas.

Paul Saffo, research director at The Institute for the Future, a technology research firm, compared the concern about the Coke cans to when the Central Intelligence Agency banned Furbies, the stuffed toys that could repeat phrases.

"There are things generals should stay up late at night worrying about," he said. "A talking Coke can isn't one of them."

But Bruce Don, a senior analyst at the Rand Corp., said the military's concern is rational and appropriate.

"There's a lot of reason to worry about how that technology could be taken advantage of by a third party without Coke's knowledge," he said. "I wouldn't worry if one was in my refrigerator, but if you had a sensitive discussion or location, it's not inconceivable the thing could be used for something it was not designed for."

That's conceivably right, though I wouldn't invest much worry in it, and I don't expect the military is; makes a good story on a slow weekend, though.

Read The Rest Scale: 1 out of 5.

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But amid growing concern that it is losing touch with an increasingly rebellious youth, the government recently announced a series of steps to bolster social, ethical and moral standards among underage Chinese.

"What they're really afraid of is not political dissidents. It's long hair, decadence, punks and hip-hop. That's raising more concern than anything else," said Hung Huang, publisher of the Chinese edition of Seventeen magazine. "In essence, China is experiencing its first real generation gap, and it's a 7 on the Richter scale."

Premier Wen Jiabao set the tone in late February with State Council Document #8 — cited as the most important statement on youth since the Communists swept to power in 1949 — calling on parents, teachers and the government to help strengthen and reform the virtue of Chinese minors.

The government has also banned the release of new foreign films during the school break this summer and tightened restrictions on foreign textbooks, cellphone text messaging, the Internet and racy magazines aimed at teens. It is recruiting new "upstanding youth" to serve as role models. And it is pouring money into "Youth Palaces," the national network of after-school community centers started in the 1950s to promote extracurricular activities.

Because who doesn't love a good Youth Palace? And communism! It's so k00!

[...]

Particularly vexing for senior party and government officials, analysts and party insiders say, is the limited traction that slogans and morality campaigns may have with a generation weaned on MTV and online games.

"The party is trying to do a little updating and repackaging," said Victor Yuan, chairman of Horizon, a market research firm that works for the government and private companies. "But compared to campaigns by professional ad people, they still fall short. Most young people would rather watch videos."

Young Chinese continue to join the Communist Party — though exact figures are unavailable, reports say the trend is up — but party stalwarts fret that they are embracing the red banner for the wrong reasons. Instead of identifying with party ideology, surveys suggest, many youngsters view the party as a networking opportunity, a sort of high-octane Rotary Club.

"I'm not interested in joining now but might consider it later," said Wu Yue, 22, a recent Beijing college graduate who is trying to break into television. "For a lot of young people, it's not an issue of believing in communism but getting good jobs, promotions and better pay, especially if you're in a political environment like government or the media."

At Vics, a trendy club in the shadow of Beijing's Worker Stadium, the focus is on parties of a different sort. At 10:30 on a weeknight, things start to hop as young Chinese amble past the faux Egyptian mummy, down the chrome stairs and onto the red luminescent dance floor to the thumping sound of rap and hip-hop. Some won't head home before 5 in the morning.

Between a Maoist Youth Palace, and the faux Egyptian mummy with hip-hop, the latter wins almost every time.

"I come here a few times a week for the music and the atmosphere," Chao Xu, a 22-year-old student, said at a table crowded with whisky bottles, soft drinks and cigarette butts. "There's concern about morality these days, but it's not a problem with any of my friends."

Not after enough whisky, anyway.

That hasn't stopped the government from trying to create a "purified" living environment for teenagers and young adults in concerts and dance halls across the country. The Culture Ministry early last month approved Britney Spears' first China tour, provided she doesn't reveal too much.

"Relevant departments will carry out strict reviews of Britney Spears' performance clothing," a state-run news agency said. The report followed the banning of Hong Kong pop diva Faye Wong's song "In the Name of Love" because the lyrics include the word "opium."

In May, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and local affiliates issued guidelines calling on TV anchors to stop dying their hair strange colors, wearing bizarre clothes, showing too much skin, using Hong Kong or Taiwan accents, displaying their navels or cleavage, and wearing plunging necklines or short skirts.

The guidelines also include calls to reduce sex and violence in prime-time programming as part of a broader "clean the screen" campaign.

Zhao Mengxin, an anchorwoman on several provincial CCTV shows, applauds the policies, especially those regulating dress.

"Local television is particularly bad, with anchors wearing vulgar, mismatched clothes that look like they grabbed them from the gutter," she said. "Being elegant is always in style, especially when young people are watching."

The crackdown on suggestive clothing may pale beside the task of reducing media violence. China, famous for its martial arts films, has a high cultural tolerance for violence, said Miao Di, a film and television professor with the Beijing Broadcasting Institute.

Several years ago, an American civic group approached Miao's school, voicing concern that violent Hollywood exports were tarnishing young Chinese people's minds.

"None of the Chinese thought the American shows were violent compared to our own homegrown programs," he said. "The Chinese people have always been very sensitive about sexuality but not that worried about violence."

Authorities are also trying to control young people's use of the Internet after a series of high-profile abuses, experts say.

"We're trying to enhance our influence over young people and promote traditional culture," said Cao Xuecheng, vice chief of the propaganda department of the China Communist Youth League.

This year, a video-game addict dropped dead, reportedly from stress and exhaustion, after playing "Legend of Mir II" for 20 hours in an Internet cafe in Chengdu. About the same time, two secondary school students in Chongqing were killed by a train when they fell asleep on railroad tracks after two days online.

In response, Beijing announced last month that it had shuttered 16,000 Internet cafes as part of a campaign to protect the nation's children and adolescents from corrosive influences — and, human rights activists say, to keep a tighter grip on free expression.

Non-regulated Internet cafes hurt the "mental health" of teenagers and interfere with their schoolwork, Culture Minister Sun Jiazheng said this year.

But there are plenty of loopholes. Ding Zheng, a Beijing high school student, stood in front of an Internet cafe on Beijing's Dong Street. "This is a joke," he said, pointing at a sign barring minors from entering. "They'll never stop you unless a policeman happens to be standing right here. My parents don't like me coming, but I just make up some excuse about heavy traffic and they never know."

Whaddya rebelling against, kid? Little Red Books! I mean, whaddaya got?

Read The Rest Scale: 2 out of 5.

Yet, the attempted repression continues:

Because You Just Can't Be Too Totalitarian

Ah, the wings of freedom continue to spread in China.

China is expanding its censorship controls to cover text messages sent using mobile phones.

New regulations have been issued to allow mobile phone service providers to police and filter messages for pornographic or fraudulent content.

But analysts fear the real targets are political dissidents.

China's authorities are gradually tightening control over the spread of electronic information, particularly on the internet.

A Paris-based group, Reporters Without Borders, says the Chinese authorities are increasingly using new technology to control information.

It says one Chinese company marketing a system to monitor mobile phone text messages has announced it is watching for "false political rumours" and "reactionary remarks".

Venus Info Tech Ltd said in a press release that its surveillance system worked by filtering algorithms based on key words and combinations of key words.

Certain key words could trigger an automatic alert to the police.

[...]

Last year, Chinese people sent more than 220bn text messages, more than half of all messages sent in the world, according to China's Xinhua news agency.

The authorities are quite correct, of course, that these technologies are highly dangerous to them. But how long and well will they be able to bottle up computer communication?

Read The Rest Scale: 1 out of 5.

In post-communist Russia:

The Bolshevik Czar

Putin's new symbolism.

The Kremlin has reintroduced one of tsarist Russia's most elaborate and elitist traditions - the imperial races.

At the weekend, President Vladimir Putin for the first time invited his regional governors and heads of former Soviet states to race for the Prize of the President of Russia, just as the tsar invited his subjects to offer horses to race for the Prize of the Emperor, which was last staged for Nicholas II in 1916.

Twelve horses at the Hippodrome stadium in Moscow raced over the largely symbolic distance of 200 metres for the prize of 3m roubles (£56,000), the Interfax news agency said.

In the crowds were well-connected Russians able to afford the 20,000-rouble tickets, as well as senior Kremlin officials, including Mr Putin.

They were joined by the heads of state over whom the Kremlin, apparently nostalgic over its Soviet-era status as a world power, again wants to extend its influence.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliev cheered on his horse, Sweet Mistress, while Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev, backed his thoroughbred, nicknamed Grantled, according to the Russian media.

Halatenango, a horse from Chechnya, reportedly entertained crowds by refusing to get into the starting gates. The presidents of Georgia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia also entered.

The dignatories watched from a "special guest tribune" where an informal summit for the heads of state was held.

Women wore hats and men morning suits, according to the strict dress code, with the leaders placing bets.

As root-and-trunk former KGB man Putin continues to centralize power in Russia in himself, increase his control over information, further his personality cult, eliminate all other loci of power, from industrialists to regional governors, and marginalize democrats into non-existence, he increasingly uses the symbols of the past. What does this one tell us about the new Caesar (Tsar)? (The man whose heart President Bush has "looked into" and found to be "good.")

Read The Rest Scale: 1 out of 5.

And to close, an anecdote of the post-cold-war Russia, from Technical Sgt. "John Stryker," posted originally to Amygdala:

Big Rooshin Plane, Not American Poosy

A first for Amygdala: a guest post. Taken from a personal e-mail, utterly casually knocked off, and with permission, from newly promoted (congratulations!) Technical Sergeant "John Stryker":

That reminds me of a Russian flight crew that I bumped into during Restore Hope. They hadn't been paid since the Soviet Union fell apart, so they'd been freelancing and living on their plane for about six months.

I blocked their plane in, and it looked rough. It was dirty, there were panels missing and the tires looked like they were on their last layer of cord.

Whoops, gotta read the rest here. :-)

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REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

• Iraqi forces stopped an attempted car bombing of a regional headquarters in Baquba, killing the bomber and two bystanders.

• The Army has charged three soldiers with manslaughter, assault, and making false statements in the drowning death of an Iraqi in January. Several other soldiers, including the battalion commander, have been named as unindicted co-conspirators for their help in attempting to cover up the incident. This trial marks another black mark on the U.S. military stemming from the Iraq occupation, in some ways a more unpleasant side effect of the war than the casualties.

• The Army celebrated the Fourth of July in Iraq with fun runs, basketball tournaments, and continued combat operations, as our soldiers mixed work and play on what was otherwise one more day in the desert.

• They've played the enemy for decades. Now the Army's Opposing Forces are preparing to go to war.

RECONSTRUCTION & THE ECONOMY

• Militants set an Iraqi oil pipeline ablaze in the first big sabotage attack since the turnover of authority to the interim Iraqi government. The attack reduced Iraqi oil exports by more than half.

IRAQI POLITICS

• Moqtada al-Sadr called the interim Iraqi government illegitimate on Sunday and vowed to resist the American occupation, although it's unclear if he actually intends to start fighting again, or if this is just a negotiation ploy with the new government to give him a place at the bargaining table.

• Iraq's interim government is expected to offer amnesty for Iraqis who fought against American forces prior to the handover. While such a move will doubtless anger some, if it provides an out for fighters who would otherwise take on the Iraqi government it may be a wise move.

• Phillip Carter notes that, even if Saddam's trial doesn't end with the desired result, his use of traditional Western legal defense measures may help to entrench those traditions in Iraqi society, a desirable goal in its own right.

THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE

• Jordan has offered to send troops to Iraq if the interim Iraqi government requests the assistance. It's too early to tell if this is a sincere attempt to help, or an underhanded attempt to slip the new government a dagger under the table.

WMD HUNT

• Citizen Smash notes the discovery of chemical weapons in Iraq.

ETCETERA

• Arthur Chrenkoff has a roundup of world press reactions to Saddam Hussein's arrival in the dock.

• The troops are still there. So is the Winds of Change.NET consolidated directory of ways you can support the troops: American, Australian, British, Canadian & Polish. Anyone out there with more information, contact us!

• Don't forget Chief Wiggles' Toys for Iraq drive!

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know.

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