Planet

In a New Yorker article about Nathan Myhrvold's idea factory, Malcolm Gladwell surfaces the scholarly work of researchers into the history of science who contend that simulatenous discover of inventions is the norm. In any period, ideas are discovered at the same time. Even big ideas. This is true for the past, present, and in different culturess. As Gladwell writes: 

They found a hundred and forty-eight major scientific discoveries that fit the multiple pattern. Newton and Leibniz both discovered calculus. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace both discovered evolution. Three mathematicians “invented” decimal fractions. Oxygen was discovered by Joseph Priestley, in Wiltshire, in 1774, and by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, in Uppsala, a year earlier. Color photography was invented at the same time by Charles Cros and by Louis Ducos du Hauron, in France. Logarithms were invented by John Napier and Henry Briggs in Britain, and by Joost Bürgi in Switzerland.  “There were four independent discoveries of sunspots, all in 1611; namely, by Galileo in Italy, Scheiner in Germany, Fabricius in Holland and Harriott in England,” Ogburn and Thomas note, and they continue: 

The law of the conservation of energy, so significant in science and philosophy, was formulated four times independently in 1847, by Joule, Thomson, Colding and Helmholz. They had been anticipated by Robert Mayer in 1842. There seem to have been at least six different inventors of the thermometer and no less than nine claimants of the invention of the telescope. Typewriting machines were invented simultaneously in England and in America by several individuals in these countries. The steamboat is claimed as the “exclusive” discovery of Fulton, Jouffroy, Rumsey, Stevens and Symmington. 

Nathan Myhrvold runs Intellectual Ventures, which is essentially a patent machine. The chief employees are patent lawyers and clerks who win about 500 patents per year. These patents are generated by a loose group of innovative thinkers whose job it is to sit around and come up with novel ideas. Nathan hires these smart folks to brainstorm with specialty experts. So he may land his group at a small meeting of surgeons, and watch what happens when physicists and doctors blue-sky new medical instruments. They don't do the hard work of trying to make their inventions work; instead they describe them sufficiently to get a patent for them -- if there isn't already one filed.

The point is that there often already is a patent. It's not hard to come up with new big ideas. In fact it is so easy, that most big good ideas come to more than one person at once. That is why we have a patent office -- to assign priority since good ideas are 'in the air."

Gladwell's article is terrific, as usual, but there is a very odd absence. It lacks any reference to others doing exactly the same thing as Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures. For instance it does not mention Jay Walker, of Priceline fame. Walker runs Walker Digital Labs, which does exactly what IV does. At the labs a bunch of interesting folks sit around with patent lawyers coming up with one idea after the next, which they patent at a furious rate. And then licence to others to develop. Thats' the entire business model of the outfit, just like IV.

But there is not even a hint in the piece that other outfits are mass-producing patented ideas as their chief product.  And the reason this absence is so odd is that if Myhrvold's idea is so great, you would expect, as Gladwell correctly concludes, that other folks would simultaneously have the same great idea. According to the logic of the article there would HAVE to be others. And there are!

Recognition of other people who, like Myhrvold, got the idea to manufacture patents without physical research would have been a great way to conclude this wonderful introduction to simultaneous invention. It's a rare miss for Gladwell.

some questions i’m trying to deal with as i write strategy papers on a number of subjects:

• if you tell everyone your strategy, is it still strategy?
• if you don’t tell anyone your strategy, is it still strategy?
• shouldn’t we use wikis to capture strategies?
• can linus’s law be made to apply for strategy?
• shouldn’t customers be involved?
• and if we work in coopetitive markets, shouldn’t competitors be involved?

…….

and if all the answers go one way, then

does it mean that the distinctive value is in execution, not strategy per se?

just wondering.

Dear Lazyweb,

I am tracking three different proxies for MySQL today:

http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/MySQL_Proxy
http://consoleninja.net/code/dpm/README.html
http://spockproxy.sourceforge.net/

Would someone please do a write up on which is best, which is moving forward, and synopsis the differences? I don't expect a front runner just yet, but it would be nice to see a comparison about how their development is going.

Thanks!
-Brian

BTW I am sorry if I missed a proxy, if you have another one email me or leave a comment.
BBTW I don't consider HScale a proxy, but yes it is damn neat.

I don't know what I think of Sweet Dreams Security.

This paper surveys Linux's suitability for use by owners of very small businesses and the self-employed. It was written by Howard Fosdick, a self-employed database consultant who finds Linux fairly well-suited to his needs, and reckons it has saved him thousands of dollars in recent years.

Taking a quick break from Javascript hacking to post this Lotus Notes tweak.

Following Susan Schreitmueller’s advice in the 28-hour Workday presentation she gave, I started replying in subject lines and using [EOM, NRN] to indicate the end of the message and that no response is necessary.

Not everyone’s familiar with this convention, so I always included a short explanation in the body of the message. After a number of these EOM/NRN messages, I created an AutoHotkey macro to save me a few keystrokes. I set up !eomnrn to expand to “EOM - end of message, NRN - no response needed”, and I used that in the body of the message.

I thought it still took too many keystrokes and mouse clicks to reply to a message, add my note to the subject line, add “[EOM, NRN]” to the end of the line, and type in the explanation in the body of the message. In fifteen minutes, I whipped up this little LotusScript agent that prompts you for a response, puts it in the subject line with an explanation, and sends the message off.

In Lotus Notes, use Create - Agent to create an agent called something like “1. EOM - NRN”. Edit the agent and put this in the Initialize sub.

	Dim workspace As New NotesUIWorkspace
	Dim session As New NotesSession
	Dim db As NotesDatabase
	Dim collection As NotesDocumentCollection
	Dim memo As NotesDocument
	Dim reply As NotesDocument
	Set db = session.CurrentDatabase
	Set collection = db.UnprocessedDocuments
	Set memo = collection.getFirstDocument()
	While Not(memo Is Nothing)
		Set reply = memo.CreateReplyMessage( False )
		response = Inputbox("Response to " + memo.Subject(0))
		If (response 
 “”) Then
			reply.Subject = response + ” re: ” + memo.Subject(0) + ” [EOM, NRN]”
			reply.Body = “EOM - end of message, NRN - no response necessary”
			reply.IsSavedMessageOnSend = True
			reply.Send(False)
		End If
		Set memo = collection.GetNextDocument(memo)
	Wend

Then you can select the message(s) you want to whiz through, type Alt-A 1 to call the action, and reply quickly. You can also call it while viewing a message, which is probably a safer place to start.
Enjoy!





   

I'm an aircraft owner and use this very powerful LED-powered pen during night flying, but also while traveling on commercial flights and mostly at odd times: crosswords, fishing for something in the car at night, etc. The lighting and ink are independently controlled, so in addition to being effective, it's easy to use: the button on top is on/off for the light and the pen rotates to retract the ink. I've had some promotional-type LED pens in the past, but the button cells burn out and then it's difficult to replace them. This pen runs on a single AAA cell, which is easy to find and replace. The pen also comes with an extra battery and ink cartridge for $20 (with shipping) -- not too bad.

-- Robert Cullinan

Pilot's Pen
$20
Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Britta Products

Related items previously reviewed in Cool Tools:

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

Boeing/Pratt & Whitney Surplus Sales

Hobby-Lobby

Facebook will soon remove a limitation that restricts users to no more than 5,000 friend connections, someone close to the company told us this week.

There are stories around why the limitation exists at all. The official reason is that Facebook wants to make sure that people only add “real” friends to their account, and the restriction is on the high end of the number of friends that any one person could reasonable have. The unofficial (and actual) reason: scaling problems made this necessary. I’ve heard this directly from Facebook employees, as have others.

But those scaling issues have been resolved, we hear from our source, and the cap will soon be lifted.

Facebook says that “less than 1,000″ users have 5,000 friends today. There are around 70 million active Facebook users, so the number of users who are affected is around one thousandth of a percent. But a disproportionate percentage of bloggers and press are at the limit, so the issue tends to get a lot more attention than it otherwise would.

High profile blogger Robert Scoble is among the 1,000 Facebook users who’ve hit the cap, and has complained about the restriction in the past.

Facebook says that the “Pages” feature is meant for people and brands that want to have a lot more “friends” than are allowed via normal accounts. An example is Barack Obama’s Facebook page, which currently shows 820,000 supporters.

But for many people, being a friend is much different than being a fan, and the level of interaction allowed is also significantly different. And the new Friends List feature, which allows users to classify and group friends, makes organization easier anyway.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Our sister site, Search Marketing Now, is offering a nice mix of free webcasts later this month, ranging from dealing with big PPC campaigns, big brand SEO and bridging the offline-online gap in analytics. SMN webcasts run about 40-50 minutes and start at 1 PM Eastern Time. Here's more about each one:

Click to continue reading...

In this week's Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Click to continue reading...

Yahoo has acquired my favorite search browser plugin for Apple Safari, Inquisitor. Inquisitor is an extremely useful search refinement and search aid tool for the Apple browser market. Inquisitor offers autocomplete, refinements, suggestions, and also allows you to add any search engine you like, plus create your own personalized and advanced query operators, much like OpenSearch.

I spoke with Ariel Seidman, the director of product management for this product and he answered a number of questions I had about the acquisition.

Click to continue reading...

I got yesterday a honor award at the HP Linux Forum 2008 in Helsinki, from FLUG (Finnish Linux user group) for "important work for the good of Linux" and for "working to keep the code open even when part of MySQL management has been of different opinion".

The major award went to Ubuntu Suomi for their good work in translating Ubuntu to Finnish and helping Finnish users setting up and using Ubuntu.

Linux.fi got the other honor award for their work on creating a Finnish Wiki for Linux users.

Arto Teräs, the spokesman of FLUG, said among other things, that "MySQL was one of the killer applications that brought Linux to the business world and to other places where Linux was not used before". You can find a video of his presentation here.

I am honored and happy for the recognition from FLUG. Thanks FLUG for the award and for HP hosting the event!

It was a well attended event (for being Finland); Based on the number of cars on the parking slot I would estimate the number of persons to at least 500. The one thing that I found missing was that Sun was not present at the event. (Note to myself; Need to fix this for next year)

Here is the thing.

Not everyone whom I marked as a friend in social graph games version 1, do I still hang out with. Some moved, others I have nothing in common with any longer. Hobbies change, etc.

Just as I consider Linkedin and Facebook to be two wildly different networks, I pretty much find sites in general to be this way. Sure, some friends are portable... but in many ways social sites are sort of an archive for "this is who I was hanging out with then".

Friendster is sort of 1.0 (ok, ISCA would be 0.1, and Livejournal something like a 0.5).
Tribe 2.0
Facebook 3.0 (though Facebook is filled with friends 2.0 (aka high school))

Twitter, well I don't know what Twitter is.

But do I really want these to be portable? Not really.

Do I want to keep up to date with my friend's contact information?

Sure, that sounds excellent.

But the rest?

Not so much.

If Apple did a better job with Addressbook I would keep more information there (and keep it updated via some system (plaxo++)).

So what does all of this mean?

I am really bored with social sites, social graphs, and how many degrees I am away from anyone.

That's the new Simon Winchester book and it concerns Joseph Needham, who wrote the famous series on the history of science in China and focused the attention of the scholarly world on the question: why no capitalism in China?  This books offers a love story, a story of a quest, a story of science, a tale of politics, and did you know that Needham (unwittingly) was the guy who taught the Unabomber to use explosives?

Here is one short bit from the book:

In 1989, more than half a century after they first met, Needham and Lu Gwei-djen were married in Cambridge.  She died two years later, whereupon Needham invited three other women to marry him.  All politely declined.

Definitely recommended.  The subtitle is "The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom."  Here is one review.

Spring has arrived on the b-b-balmy shores of Lake Ontario, and the local fauna and flora have gotten down to doing what they do best - making more fauna and flora. It may be that your geeklets aren't ready for the "birds and the bees" talk (or is it the "circle of life" talk? I can never remember), but watching a new family of peregrine falcons from the beginning until the young ones are grown is exciting, educational, and downright fun when it involves web cameras.

The Rochester Falcon Cam is a web site that has followed a pair of falcons who nest every spring on the side of the Kodak headquarters building in Rochester, New York, since 1998. The family antics of the female Mariah, her mate Kaver, and her previous mate Cabot-Sirocco have been watched, recorded, and broadcast to the public thanks to a number of volunteers and the generosity of Kodak.

Mariah and Kaver have generated some buzz this week as their current clutch of eggs are hatching. As far as I have been able to see, there are three hatchlings so far and another two eggs to go. Mom and Dad take turns protecting the babies from our typical Rochester spring weather, but now and then when they go hunting for pigeons together you can see the little ones in the nest. If you're very lucky (or if you click your way to the image archives) you can see a hungry little beak open to the air, calling for food.

Now would be a very good time to peek in on the new family, because little peregrines grow up fast. According to the site's "Falcon Lifecycle" article, they are nearly fully grown at six weeks.

Now be honest - isn't this better than reality television?

My previous entry was somewhat misleading in one respect - the discussion of the power consumption of a downclocked processor. The problem is that nowadays, halving your CPU frequency doesn't halve the power consumption (see the figures in Arjan's slides from OSCON last year, for instance). I'm assuming that this is due to the cache size on modern hardware being sufficiently large that it dominates the power consumption of the processor. Dropping the frequency doesn't reduce the amount of power required to keep the contents of the cache alive, so the saving is less than you'd expect. Deeper C states disable the cache and save much more power.

So, if halving your speed means everything takes twice as long but doesn't even halve your power consumption, what's the point in having P states at all? There's a certain amount of latency and power involved in moving between C states, and if the choice is between rapidly cycling between full speed and C4 or just sticking at low speed and maybe dropping into C1 or C2, then executing code at the lower performance state may be beneficial. The ondemand governor takes this into account by looking at the amount of load on the processor over time, so if this doesn't hit a threshold value it'll assume that you're better off staying at the lower performance level.

Work-life balance. What a strange phrase. As if “work” is something that is distinct and separate from “life”, that the two are mutually exclusive, that there is a need to allocate critical resources (like time) between “work” and “life”, and that some sort of trade-off between the two must take place. One day someone will explain to me how and why the phrase originated.

But in the meantime.

One thing is clear:

If you treat work and life as mutually exclusive things, then you should not be surprised to have a work-life balance problem

Me, I like to think I’m on holiday all the time. And, as a result:

• While I’m on holiday, there are a number of things I have to get done. And it is important that I get them done as efficiently as I can, so that I can enjoy “the rest of my holiday”.
• While I’m on holiday, there are a number of things that happen, things that I have to respond to. And it is important that I respond to them effectively, knowing how to prioritise them when they compete for attention, how to manage conflict between them. As long as I have a clear view of my priorities, I can enjoy “the rest of my holiday”.
• While I’m on holiday, there are a number of things I think about, things that I discuss with the people I’m on holiday with. It is important that I have these discussions, because something very important depends on the outcome of the discussions. How to stay on holiday. As long as I have an answer to that question, I can enjoy “the rest of my holiday”.

Being on holiday is not a physical thing. It’s about where your head is at.

You can be doing your best to imitate a rotisserie chicken while on the beach somewhere, but if your head is in the office then that’s where you really are. if you’re on the slopes and all you can think about is how to solve the noises that emanate from your home heating system, then that’s where you really are.

You can be doing your best to imitate a “suit” while in the office somewhere, but if your head is in bed then that’s where you really are.

Being on holiday is a state of mind.

And the opposite of “being on holiday” is “not being on holiday”. Which is not to be confused with “being at work” and “being at home”.

if the only time you’re away from stress is when you’re on holiday, then maybe you should act as if you’re on holiday all the time. You will make better decisions that way. And if the only time you’re able to function properly is when you’re at work, then maybe you should act as if you’re at work all the time. Horses for courses.

Here’s one way to look at things: I have my personal life, and I have my professional life. They are not mutually exclusive, they overlap all over the place. People you know professionally can and do become your friends. People you know personally can and do become your colleagues. This is not wrong. It’s normal.

If I am at work, and I get a call from my daughter saying she’s at Waterloo Station, all shaken up, the victim of a mugging, then I drop everything and go to her. Because that takes priority over whatever else I am doing at the time.

In the same way, if I am at home, and I get a call from a colleague saying there’s been a major problem with a project and it’s all hands to the pump for the weekend, I drop everything and go in. Because that takes priority over whatever else I am doing at the time.

It’s a question of priorities.

Sometimes it’s not that simple. If my daughter calls me from Waterloo and I am in San Francisco at the time, then I can only “drop thing” virtually and vicariously. I have to respond to the stimulus according to the known constraints. I’m not going to get on the first plane back willy-nilly, I’m going to ensure that someone I can trust goes and meets my daughter, and remains responsible for her until she’s safely at home.

And if I’m in Jamaica with the family when the project call comes in, I’m not going to get on the first plane willy-nilly either. I’m going to find something that works within the known constraints.

So it’s a question of priorities, but clearly in the context of known constraints, both temporary as well as permanent. There is no point getting hassled about things you have zero ability to influence. It’s like getting upset because it’s raining. Or not raining.

I think “life balance” (as opposed to work-life balance) comes down to three things:

1. Be the same person at home and at work.

2. Have a clear view of your priorities: one list of priorities, including items from all parts of your life, principally made up of your family and work commitments, but explicitly including your values and beliefs, your community, your own dreams and aspirations.

3. Be consistent and transparent to others about how you prioritise in the event of contention or conflict.

That’s what I try. I don’t always succeed, but that doesn’t mean I stop trying.

There is an ongoing crisis in Myanmar (Burma) in the aftermath of cyclone Nargis. The ruling military junta is finally allowing humanitarian organizations into the region after denying access for almost a week. The situation is grim, and you can help by donating to organizations like: Doctors without Borders, Direct Relief, and UNICEF.

There has been some incredible discussion on the humanitarian tech and Geo lists in the past 24 hours around adapting/improving existing collaboration services to work with the tools in the field. Mikel Maron and I will be speaking about this at Where2.0 next week, and it looks like some exciting work will be happening there and at WhereCamp.

Eduardo Jezierski from InSTEDD is currently working to localize the Sahana Disaster Management System

Jonathan Thompson's organization, Humanlink, has been working on adapting technology for aid workers for some time. You can follow recent developments on the Aid Worker Daily blog.

Earlier this week Silicon.com’s Naked CIO posted an article in which the anonymous chief information officer asked the question “Is open source dead?” and argued that “open source has found its niche and will continue to be of practical value in the realm of web and network security. But its application to business is limited.”

The Naked CIO put forward a number of arguments in support of the declaration, all of which can be cynically translated as follows:

“Open source lacks true and defined standards, best-of-breed capabilities, fully functional integration and knowledgeable staff to support it cost-effectively.”
Cynical translation: “I love Microsoft software.”

“Having tried to manage open source environments, the degree to which rather eccentric - apologies for the generalisation - open source custodians and Unix engineers customise their environments creates extremely bulky systems and applications that are difficult to manage.”
Cynical translation: “I know where I am with Microsoft software.”

“From an organisational perspective, in its level of customisation and lack of true industry standards, this is cowboy technology.”
Cynical translation: “No one ever got fired for using Microsoft software.”

“I would love to see open source continue to grow from a technology perspective. But would I rely on it in a business perspective? Absolutely not - at least not as the main platform driver in my organisation.”
Cynical translation: “Hey, I’m a pragmatist. But I really, really love Microsoft software.”

While it is easy to ridicule (in fact I just have), the post also raises a significant issue that stands in the way of wider open source software adoption: the conservatism of many senior IT executives. The Naked CIO offers four questions that open source adopters should ask themselves:

“1. What is the business driver behind this initiative?
2. Is the true cost - including the labour to support it, annual subscription fees and the technical gaps in support, integration and innovation - lower then other alternatives?
3. Can I find capable resources cost-effectively to deliver an open source environment and then support it over time?
4. Can standards be implemented that allow for effective management of an open source application?”

Nothing wrong with those, except - could they not be applied to any software deployment? What makes open source software different? It would be easy to blame FUD, but I don’t think that’s the issue here. It’s not that open source is so dangerous but that the alternative - particularly Microsoft - is so safe. That’s why, despite the problems, enterprise adoption of Vista is inevitable.

Also, as Scott Wilson over on the CIO Weblog notes, “While there is certainly truth to [the Naked CIO’s] perspective, it is a perspective which intentionally examines only those factors in the software selection process which OSS falls down on, without balancing them against the corresponding weak points in commercial software.” (Such as licensing and compliance and forced-obsolescence).

Scott adds: “the major reason that Naked is wrong is that the next platform his company is going to be running on will be open source software… he just won’t know it. I’m referring here to the cloud or SaaS vendor of your choice.”

As is pointed out in the comments to the original post, the chances are that in fact the Naked CIO is already reliant on open source software. Could it be that - in a reversal of the Emperor’s New Clothes, the Naked CIO is not so naked at all?

It’s hard to compete in the search engine market, but one approach taken by several startups is to sit on top of the big search engines and try to improve their results or interface. Why reinvent the wheel when you can simply add new spokes? Surf Canyon, a bootstrapped startup I wrote about last February, re-orders results on Google, Yahoo, and Windows Live Search through a browser add-on. Previously self-funded, the startup has raised a seed round of $600,000 from angel investors. It is showing that even a search startup can be built on the cheap.

Surf Canyon is probably not going to be the next Google, but it does improve the traditional search interface by pulling up related results that otherwise would be buried on page 12 or page 52 of the regular results. Here’s how I described the service in my initial review:

Whenever you do a search, a little bullseye icon appears at the right of each result. If you click on the bullseye, Surf Canyon inserts three recommended search results that are similar to the one you clicked on. They appear indented under the result you are trying to drill down into.

The results are hit or miss. Surf Canyon basically gets three chances per click to come up with a relevant recommendation. In general, it comes closer than if you hit the “Similar pages” link that Google provides with every search result, but it still feels pretty random. Showing more than three recommended results would help. But what I like best about Surf Canyon is the interface. It doesn’t take you to another Web page. The recommended results just appear underneath the appropriate link. It feels more like an application than a cumbersome Website where you have to click through multiple pages to find what you want. Google could take a lesson in interface design from Surf Canyon here with all of its Ajax goodness.

I find that I still use the Surf Canyon feature on a regular basis. The results, though, are still hit or miss. Maybe the new funds will help them fine-tune their algorithm.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

The tragedy in Myanmar has again highlighted how natural disasters disproportionately affect poorer regions. This of course, is a pretty obvious conclusion to draw at this point, but it’s worth noting again. Being rich makes disasters less, well, disaster-ish. And while it’s true that the cause of this loss of life is Mother Nature, the only way to combat this destruction is by deploying all the cool things we humans have invented over the years. The problem is that those cool things cost resources, and people who spend all their resources on day-to-day necessities aren’t going to be interested in “wasting” them on natural disasters that might never occur.
So, in enforcing the poverty of its citizens, the government of Myanmar may not have actually hired rabid grizzly bears to eat its citizenry, but it duct-taped raw steaks to them and left them in the woods.

Update: Well, maybe it’s even worse than that. Sigh.

A couple of days ago I listed 10 of the tools I find essential whenever I travel, along with a bunch of related tips. Today, I have more tips, this time disconnected from any particular tool or gadget.

Because most of the traveling I’ve done as an adult has consisted of longish trips overseas, these tips are going to tend to be more useful for Americans traveling abroad over two weeks or more. (Though there are a couple that really only apply to short trips.) I can’t really change that; it’s who I am and what I know. But I’d love to see some of your best tips in the comments for people who have to take shorter, more business-oriented trips (I’ve taken only one business trip in my entire life).

It might also be useful to know where my head is when I travel. In The Tao of Travel I expressed horror at the way most tourists travel. The target of my scorn isn’t the sight-seeing, what bothers me is the creation of little “bubbles” of people similar to one’s self that insulate us from the culture of the places we travel to. Of course you should visit the historical sites, the museums, the famous music halls, and the best restaurants (f you can afford them), but you should also spend time in a tiny street corner park, drink beer in a local pub, buy food from a street vendor, and wander the residential streets.

And most of all, you should meet people, regardless of the language barriers. I’ve always found that the cultural wall between us is only about a foot-and-a-half high: easy to step over with just a little effort. Use as good an approximation of their language as you can, and listen intently to their broken English — share freely of yourself and take freely what they’re willing to share with you. Otherwise, it’s all just pretty pictures.

OK, sermon time is over! It’s time to get on with the tips:

1. Use Your Debit Card

Time was when traveler’s cheques were the safest way to carry money aborad, but those days are long gone. In fact, I’m really not sure how the traveler’s cheques companies keep on going — debit cards make traveler’s cheques completely useless. They always were a hassle, anyway; unless you stayed in a hotel that offered traveler’s cheque cashing as a service to guests, they were almost impossible to spend or cash. In any case, nowadays, there are very few places where you can’t find an ATM to withdraw cash, and of course you can use debit cards just like credit cards for most purchases. Yes, you’ll pay a fee, but it’s pretty much comparable to the fee you pay for traveler’s cheques.

You can locate ATM machines in whatever countries you’re visiting at the Plus and Cirrus sites. There are three Maestro/Cirrus ATMs in Manzini, Swaziland, for example.

2. Get Used to Local Currencies

If you’re actually working in a country and earning local currencies, the faster you can get over the habit of converting prices to your native currency, the better. Every country has its own standard, and getting used to it is a big step towards understanding the local mindset.

On the other hand, if you’re just visiting, you’ll need to be careful about how you spend money. It can be easy to lose track of your spending when the local currency is some odd number to the dollar. My advice is, come up with an easy formula for conversion, and round up so that your estimate is always fewer dollars than you think.

For example, in Budapest in the mid-’90s, the local currency was around 110 Forint to the dollar (if I’m remembering properly). By assuming a Forint was equal to a US penny, I could easily decide what was worth spending my money on — and know I was actually saving a little in the bargain. If, say, the local currency was 1643 units to a dollar, I’d  call it 3000 to 2 — that is, something that was 5870 whatevers would be 4 dollars. The actual price would be around $3.50, so I’d be off, but I’d be off in a way that would save me money — which is much better than running short because you got confused by the local currency.

3. Dress Well

Everyone can recognize an American tourist on the street, before she or he even opens their mouth. Our standard travel uniform is jeans or shorts, a t-shirt, sneakers, and a baseball cap on men; on women, it’s a short skirt, jeans, or shorts and a sleeveless top, along with a pair of sandals.

The problem is, in a world where many people already think poorly of Americans, our vacation dress sends the message that we don’t respect them or their culture. What’s more, you’ll find many places — churches and cathedrals, some restaurants, and many clubs — won’t let you in the door!

You don’t need a suit and tie, but you’d be surprised what a pair of khakis or a knee-length dress will do for the reaction you get from locals.

4. Rip Up Your Guides

There are some great guide books out there; I’m partial to the Lonely Planet books, myself. A good guide book gives you not only an idea of what to see and where it is, but background information about the culture, history, and language of the places you visit.

The problem is, they’re huge. You don’t want to carry that big heavy thing all over the world with you, nor do you want to give it any more of your valuable luggage space than absolutely necessary.

The solution: rip it up. Pull out only the parts relating to the countries or cities you’ll be visiting, staple them together, and drop them in a ziplock bag. As you leave a country, toss it or, better yet, pass it on to a less-prepared traveler without a guidebook to call their own.

5. Hand Out Calling Cards

Hopefully you’ll meet a lot of people along the way. Carry a small stack of business-card-sized calling cards with your name, address, and email address (and whatever other information you feel like sharing) to hand out to people you want to stay in touch with. You can have them made up just like regular business cards, print them on business card stock at home, or get creative and use a service like Moo to make cards with pictures of you, your family, and your hometown on them.

6. Learn 10 Phrases

One thing that contributes strongly to the poor image Americans (and to a great extent, Britons and Aussies too) have abroad is our relative ignorance of every language but English (and let’s face it, we’re no great shakes with English, either). While you can’t be expected to learn the native language of every single country you ever visit, you can at least make an effort to pick up a few pleasantries. Learn to say at least each of the following in the language of whatever country you’re visiting:

1. Hello
2. Goodbye
3. Thank you
4. Please
5. My name is…
6. Do you speak English?
7. Where is the bathroom?
8. Where is the train station?
9. How much?
10. The numbers 1 - 20.

I remember a phrasebook I once had included “Will you marry me?”, which I’ve always thought funny. Just in case it comes up, maybe you should learn that one too.

Most people will know immediately that you don’t speak their language, but that’s not the point. The point is to show that yo’re trying, and to give them a chance to laugh a little (with you, hopefully, but sometimes at you). Then they can feel comfortable about their own English (which is probably at least as good as yours, anyway).

7. The Amazing Disposable Underwear Trick

One way to lighten your load as you travel is to take all your worst underwear with you — the ones with holes, sagging waistbands, etc. Don’t ever throw away old underwear if it’s at all still wearable and you plan to travel ever! Instead, take it on your trip and, as it wears out completely, trash it. You were going to throw it away at home, anyway. Of course, if you get down to your last pair or two, you might want to buy more…

8. The Canadian Flag Trick

I admit, I’ve never done this, but I’ve known people who have and it works. You’ll have to sort the ethics out on your own — I’m just the messenger here.

The trick is, attach a Canadian flag patch to your backpack. You’d be surprised at how much better people will treat you — I’ve seen hostel managers turn Americans away saying there were no more rooms and then give a bed to a Canadian-patch bearing traveler a few minutes later. People are remarkably aware of the different cultures and politics of Canada and the US, and act accordingly.

Note: Remember, when you fly the Canadian flag, you’re a de facto representative of the Canadian people. Always be on your best behavior. if confronted by a Canadian, you’re on your own. Nothing so enrages them as US travelers besmirching their good name through trickery and deceit.

9. Take the bus!

Take the bus or other public transportation whenever you can. It’s a great way to get your bearings in a strange city and to see the sights, including a lot of points of interest that might not have made it into your guidebook. To be honest, this is a pretty good idea in th US, too — I remember taking a group of friends, all New York and New Jersey natives, on a bus down the Museum Mile in New York City; none of them had ever taken a city bus in NYC, and all of them were impressed by what a lovely ride it was.

10. [Insert Your Tip Here]

Travel is all about creativity, so always keep your eyes open for neat ways to deal with whatever a new culture throws at you.

For those of you who think #10 is a cop-out, here’s a bonus tip: Follow tour groups. Whenever you happen across a tour group in museums and even on the street, adjust your path so that it just happens to coincide with the path the tour group is taking. You’ll get a little piece of history from someone who knows pretty well that they’re talking about. You don’t have to follow the entire tour, just take advantage of someone in a public space talking about whatever it is they’re showing off.

Like I said, I’d love to hear your tips, especially for shorter trips. Leave us a note in the comments!

---

Dustin M. Wax is a contributing editor and project manager at lifehack.org. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and women's studies in Las Vegas, NV. His personal site can be found at dwax.org.

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Thanks to TOD reader Tim R. for pointing out this piece on the food v. fuel problem in the Seattle PI yesterday. One takeaway message is contained in this chart from a group at The University of Washington (click to enlarge):

Under the fold you will find two youtube videos that are worth your time. The first is from Fast Money (CNBC) yesterday entitled "It's Supply, Stupid." After a bit of discussion on the panel, Joe Terranova provides a really nice discussion (about 4 mins) of the reasoning behind why the price oil is rising: supply and demand. Sure, it's a little bit the weak dollar, it's a little bit speculation, but Terranova makes an elegant argument as to why it's mostly the fundamentals--which is kinda what we've been saying for a while around here, eh?

The second video, is Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money (1:30) discussing ethanol and its implications for food; he uses the words "Wall of Ethanol Truth," "that issue is killing Americans," "ending the ethanol mandate," and "Malthusian." Wow. Let's discuss.

[break] Here's the Fast Money crew and Joe Terranova..."It's Supply, Stupid..."

and here's Cramer...he's not very happy with ethanol.

Thanks Leanan! :)

It’s always a good idea to kill your startup in public. Russell Beattie did that last month with Mowser, a service that converts regular Web addresses into mobile-friendly ones, because he said didn’t “believe in the ‘Mobile Web’ anymore.” Luckily for him, some people disagreed with him (and not just Mike).

Mowser’s intellectual property and the site itself was acquired today by dotMobi, the mobile domain-name consortium based in Ireland. The technology will be integrated into dotMobi’s own http://find.mobi/ service, as well as some of its mobile domain creation tools. Needless to say, Russell Beattie is now a happy man.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Shaunta says:

To get rid of cradle cap, wash your baby's hair with dandruff shampoo.

We used baby oil and a comb, but it took forever to go away. Anyone else have cradle cap cures?

Related: What do you do with baby oil?

This may be the most useful tip you'll get all year. From James:

My son had the bejebus scared out of him by the autoflushing toilet when we were just starting training. I don't blame him, me holding him over the pot trying to keep him from falling in while he did his business. Then out of nowhere WOOSH! Since then, he's been very concerned whenever he has to confront one. I've tried to stand in front of the sensor or hold my hand near it, and it works sometimes, but it needs to work ALL THE TIME! I found that if you drape a length of toilet paper over the sensor (folded over a few times), you can fool the Potty Eye. Then when he's all set we can pull it off and let the flush happen. No more worrying about getting sucked down the pipes and he gets a kick out of fooling the potty!

Even now, both my kids are wary of autoflush toilets. When my son was in preschool and we were stuck in an airport restroom somewhere dealing with a particularly loud self-flushing toilet, he yelled, "Who's the jerk who invented this? Didn't he know that kids have issues?"

Related: What to do with your kid when you're in a public restroom?

The RIAA’s head technology guy says that the move away from DRM (anti-copying) technology by record labels is just a phase, according to a Greg Sandoval story at News.com:

“(Recently) I made a list of the 22 ways to sell music, and 20 of them still require DRM,” said David Hughes, who heads up the RIAA’s technology unit, during a panel discussion at the Digital Hollywood conference. “Any form of subscription service or limited play-per-view or advertising offer still requires DRM. So DRM is not dead.”

…

Last January, when Sony BMG became the last major recording company to sell DRM-free tracks at Amazon, plenty of observers considered the technology buried. Since then, a growing number of online stores have begun offering at least some open MP3s, including Walmart.com, Zune’s Marketplace, Amazon, as well as iTunes.

Not so fast, said Hughes, who predicted that DRM would reemerge in a big way. “I think there is going to be a shift,” he told the audience. “I think there will be a movement towards subscription services, and (that) will eventually mean the return of DRM.”

The imminent success of subscription services with DRM is more or less what the record industry was predicting several years ago. It didn’t happen, mostly because customers found the services clunky and inflexible — DRM at its worst. Nothing has changed to make DRMed subscription services more attractive. If anything, these services look even worse in light of the trend toward selling DRM-free tracks.

I can see the argument for selling large bundles of music rather than selling one track at a time. Bundling makes economic sense, given the huge storage capacity of today’s devices. The iPod of the future won’t be filled one track at a time.

But clunky DRM-based subscription services aren’t the only way to sell bundles of songs, and there are probably good ways to sell subscriptions without DRM. If you’re worried that a customer will subscribe for one month, download a zillion songs, cancel the subscription and keep the songs,then you can limit the number of downloads per month, or require a longer subscription period. If you can sell songs without DRM — and we know now that you can — there ought to be a way to sell a friendly subscription service too.

On this issue, the RIAA’s members may be ahead of the RIAA itself. There are encouraging signs that some of the major record companies are recognizing the need to rebuild their business strategy for the Internet era.

Yesterday before Google's annual meeting of shareholders, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page fielded questions from reporters on a range of subjects, including a potential paid search deal with Yahoo and its anti-trust implications. Their argument was that a future paid search deal could be set up in a way to allay such concerns, currently being explored by the US Justice Department. And because of the auction structure of the model, there are no price-fixing implications Brin said. Schmidt simultaneously reiterated his desire that Google and Yahoo work together but said there was no deal to announce at the moment.

Click to continue reading...

In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: News from the search engines, today's in-depth look, "Google's Tools Section, Part 1 - Intro" and this week's free tips and tools.

Click to continue reading...

Food fears

At Dollar Foods on Commercial Drive, manager Quoc On is busy in the back supervising the arrival of a food shipment. The aisles are jammed with hungry customers, the lineup at the cashier is deep, and outside the front door boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables are piled high on the sidewalk, the fresh produce sparkling in the warm springtime sun. The scene is one of affluence and abundance, yet behind this façade a crisis is brewing that may signal the end of the Age of Endless Abundance. At the very least, the days of cheap food imported from all around the world at very low prices may be about to end.

[break]

Ending state monopoly of oil in Mexico could remake Latin America

It could be said that Latin America will come of age politically the day that Pemex, Mexico's oil behemoth, ceases to be a state monopoly. Until that happens, the psyche of many Latin Americans will be beholden to the mythical notion that government-owned natural resources are the custodians of national identity.

That is why President Felipe Calderón's efforts to open up the oil sector to private investment in Mexico have profound cultural implications.

Tasmania poised for oil, gas bonanza

TASMANIA may be on the verge of a multi-billion-dollar onshore oil and gas boom.

US exploration company Empire Energy Corporation yesterday unveiled a $31 million program to drill up to eight test wells at key locations in an exploration lease covering 23 per cent of the state.

It also released an independent expert's prediction that the lease could hold between 67million and 145million barrels of oil and between 344billion and 799billion cubic feet of natural gas.

Production of more oil can’t be taken off the table

The answer to energy problems should have been addressed a decade ago or longer. A bipartisan group of 20 experts in energy met for over three years to come up with a plan to help alleviate the impending energy crisis. They completed their work in 2004 with recommendations that encompass the issues of oil security, the environment, fuel efficiency, renewable fuels, etc.

Yes, the commission recommended environmental controls, expanding renewable fuel sources and fuel efficiency standards. Also among those suggestions, however, were to expand and develop nuclear energy, explore and develop the fields in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), build more refineries and increase mandatory fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, trucks and utility vehicles.

The Truth About Gas Prices

The far left, including Barack Hussen Obama, and their shills in the dinosaur media are moaning about, and disparaging McCain and Clinton’s proposal for a temporary suspension of the federal gasoline tax. The elites don’t care that gas prices will keep many working Americans from taking any vacation this summer. Nor do they care that the price of gas is forcing Americans to pay more for everything from food to clothing. They’re just outraged that anyone would expect the government to get by with a little less even while the citizens are suffering.

Who Really Lost the Cold War?

These days, the price of oil seems ever on the rise. A barrel of crude broke another barrier Wednesday -- $123 -- on international markets, and the talk is now of the sort of "superspike" in pricing (only yesterday unimaginable) that might break the $200 a barrel ceiling "within two years." And that would be without a full-scale American air assault on Iran, after which all bets would be off.

Considering that, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, oil was still in the $20 a barrel price range, this is no small measure of what the Bush administration years have really accomplished.

Democrats' Windfall Tax — On You

As any student who's taken Econ 101 at the local junior college can tell you, higher taxes don't encourage production; they discourage it. But Senate Democrats apparently played hooky the day taxes were discussed. They should at least have read the report from their own nonpartisan Congressional Research Service in 2006.

It shows that from 1980 to 1986, the last time the U.S. had a windfall profits tax on oil companies, the results were disappointing. As the chart shows, oil companies were hit hard by the tax. And in line with basic economic theory, they produced less oil, not more.

Welch says his plan to suspend shipments to the national reserve is gaining support

Democratic Congressman Peter Welch says he's encouraged that a number of prominent Republicans are now backing his plan to suspend shipments to the national Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Welch says the proposal is part of a larger plan that's designed to reduce gasoline prices by as much as 75 cents a gallon.

Broken food system

A food security expert at UB says the worldwide food crisis is a direct result of the choices made by policy-makers and the lack of attention paid to the food system and its relationship to global warming and fossil fuels.

Germany Warns Of Economic Risks From Species Loss

BERLIN - Nations must act to slow extinction rates, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Thursday, arguing the loss of species threatened food supplies for billions of people.

Go Easy On Biofuels Until More Clarity - World Bank

WASHINGTON - A senior World Bank official said on Thursday that countries should not greatly increase biofuels production until there is more clarity about how much they have contributed to the global food price crisis.

Juergen Voegele, director for agriculture and rural development department at the World Bank, cautioned against shifting a lot of the blame to biofuels but also said massive subsidies for the biofuel industry was not helping the crisis.

Salt water tested as fuel source

SEATTLE – For more than a year, it's been widely circulated on the Internet as a scientific oddity.

Now a process that converts sea water into a possible fuel source is gaining legitimacy.

For Sale: Machine To Make Home-Made Ethanol

NEW YORK - A new company hopes drivers will kick the oil habit by brewing ethanol at home that won't spike food prices.

E-Fuel Corp unveiled on Thursday the "MicroFueler" touting it as the world's first machine that allows homeowners to make their own ethanol and pump the brew directly into their cars.

Niagara Summit told of brave new globally warmed world

Niagara's future isn't as dependent on the mid-peninsula corridor and selling wine to Germany as it is on containing urban sprawl, improving public transportation and developing policies that will help the elderly and the poor cope with heat waves that push the mercury above 40øC for days on end, a renowned political scientist and bestselling author says.

Thomas Homer-Dixon said municipal politicians have to start planning now for a world where extreme storms, prolonged droughts and oppressive heat waves are common. Where the increased cost of shipping food halfway across the world makes eating locally grown food more feasible.

Climate, Culture, and Collapse: Responding to Rapid Change

Recent and emerging observations of the severity of human-induced climate change have led to a feverish burst of publications imploring radical and immediate action. Many of the world’s most eminent scientists are now joining NGOs in calling for drastic halts in greenhouse gas emissions and societal changes on an unprecedented and global scale. The Climate Code Red Call for a Sustainability Emergency, for instance, likens our current position to that of the astronauts in the Apollo 13 crisis: a desperate time-crunch necessitating quick thinking, rapid response, and radical action.

However, the magnitude of the climate issue is profound and the mainstream has not responded to the scale of the threat. We are at the cusp of a global crisis that is still only perceived by relatively few individuals and groups. The voices of these authorities – our leading global change scientists and organizations – are often muffled, suppressed, or diminished by the influence of media and mass culture.

Gas jumps above $3.67, oil passes $126 on Venezuela concerns

NEW YORK - Oil rose above $126 a barrel for the first time Friday, bringing its advance this week to nearly $10, as investors questioned whether a possible confrontation between the U.S. and Venezuela could cut exports from the OPEC member. Gas prices, meanwhile, rose above an average $3.67 a gallon at the pump, following oil's recent path higher.

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal published a report that suggested closer ties between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and rebels attempting to overthrow Colombia's government. Chavez has been linked to Colombian rebels previously, but the paper reported it had reviewed computer files indicating concrete offers by Venezuela's leader to arm guerillas. That appears to heighten the chances that the U.S. could impose sanctions on one of its biggest oil suppliers.

"If we put on sanctions, I'm sure Chavez would threaten to cut off our oil supply," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. "Obviously that would have a major impact on oil prices."

Light, sweet crude for June delivery vaulted to a new record of $126.20 in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange before retreating to trade up $1.09 at $124.78 a barrel.

OTC: "There is plenty oil in the world" - Sandrea

There is no oil scarcity in the world, "there is plenty of oil in the world", Dr. Rafael Sandrea, president of IPC Petroleum Consultants Inc., a Tulsa base International consulting firm, speaking at a press conference at the OTC energy conference in Houston, on Wednesday, insisted.

... Contrary to the case of scarcity of oil reserves, Sandrea proves with his model that global crude oil and natural gas reserves are still strong and only 20% of the discovered reserves have been used.

Even do some experts for see a crucial inflection point ahead, base in historic discovery rates, and their estimates of decline, in the world hydrocarbons reserves, claiming that a peak oil and gas production is looming and a collapse in in the horizon, Sandrea, said that until now, nobody has made a credible attempt to quantify future potential oil and gas supply in detail, ands on a global basis.

Sandrea concludes that, contrary to the well publicize "Peak Oil theory" that oil & gas reserves are in imminent danger of "falling from cliff", there is in fact spare capacity available with the demand and supply remaining in balance for decades to come.

Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser: He Got Game

Real Networks (RNWK) CEO Rob Glaser says his company so far is feeling few effects from the economic downturn. And in fact, the company today reported better-than-expected Q1 results.

In an interview this afternoon with Tech Trader Daily, Glaser does say that the one area where he sees some “clouds” going forward is advertising, which affects several of the company’s businesses, but which overall is less than 10% of Real’s revenues. Ask Glaser about the economy, and he’ll say that while he’s bullish on his own company, he’s not quite as optimistic about the broad picture. Glaser says he’s a “peak-oil believer” who is on his third hybrid. Oil, he says, is not going back to $60 anytime soon, “if ever.”

Biogas? China size it

Conversion to a symmetrical or parallel system for our world’s electricity generation will require a combination of small, locally-generated power supplies, coupled with individual home generation, in addition to the regular power grid supply. Conversion to a new world, not in geography, but in power generation will need to be developed as a hybrid of generation sources comprised of: Concentrating Solar Power (CSP), Hydroelectric, Geothermal, Wind, PV Panel, Tidal Current and Magnetic Linear Generator Buoys, plus Bio-Mass and Biogas in addition to coal and natural gas.

ANALYSIS - World begins to smart from oil's too rapid rise

LONDON, May 9 (Reuters) - From the poorest of Africa to the United States and big business, a breakneck rally that could take oil to $200 a barrel is likely to inflict pain on everyone.

The world was remarkably resilient to a series of record prices in 2007, but a roughly 30 percent rise since the end of last year, with predictions of more to come, is harder to absorb.

"The key issue is the rate of change. The recent exponential rise is unhealthy for everyone," a senior executive from a major oil company said. He declined to be named.

Russia foreign investors unfazed by rows with West

LONDON (Reuters) - With oil at more than $125 per barrel and growth booming, foreign investors in Russia are finding it easy to turn a blind eye to disputes with the West and increasingly bellicose rhetoric over Georgia.

Record oil prices bring fresh interest in L.A.'s wells

LOS ANGELES — Record prices are prompting oil prospectors to renew interest in drilling in Los Angeles, where urban sprawl, environmental opponents and decades of production make for one of the world's toughest oil fields.

"We're more active than ever," says Tim Marquez, CEO and founder of Venoco, which is running wells and reviving old ones in the city and elsewhere in California.

March trade surplus widens on energy prices

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Rising prices for oil and natural gas exports boosted Canada's trade surplus to C$5.53 billion ($5.48 billion) in March, above expectations for a third straight month and the highest level since May of last year, Statistics Canada said on Friday.

Analysts in a Reuters poll had forecast, on average, a trade surplus of C$4.5 billion. Statscan revised the February surplus to C$4.79 billion from C$4.94 billion previously.

Ensuring the Future of the Oil and Gas Industry

Despite the rising price of oil, experts predict that the oil and gas industry will experience a void in employees in the coming years. In addition to the "Graying Workforce" phenomenon, there simply are not as many young people joining the industry.

Chevron: 1,100 employees eliminated within reorganization

NEW YORK - Chevron Corp. said about 1,100 employees were eligible for severance payments at the end of the first quarter, after the nation's second largest oil company eliminated the positions as part of a restructuring and reorganization plan.

India: Coal situation worsens at thermal stations: Chinese demand eating into imports

Coal reserves at power stations have hit a record low.

Nearly a third of the country’s thermal stations are now reported to be facing “critical stocks”, where coal stocks are expected to last less than seven days.

Planes fly more, emit less greenhouse gas

WASHINGTON — The U.S. aviation industry has cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 13% since 2000, even as the amount of flying has reached record levels, government data show.

Conservationists make most of real estate crisis

Plummeting real estate values and demand for new housing are hammering developers but helping conservationists, enabling land trusts to buy thousands of acres that were slated for development and preserve them as open space.

Michael T. Klare: Portrait of an Oil-Addicted Former Superpower

Nineteen years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall effectively eliminated the Soviet Union as the world's other superpower. Yes, the USSR as a political entity stumbled on for another two years, but it was clearly an ex-superpower from the moment it lost control over its satellites in Eastern Europe.

Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel crude oil roared past $110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the $3.50 threshold at American pumps, and diesel fuel topped $4.00. As was true of the USSR following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the USA will no doubt continue to stumble on like the superpower it once was; but as the nation's economy continues to be eviscerated to pay for its daily oil fix, it, too, will be seen by increasing numbers of savvy observers as an ex-superpower-in-the-making.

Oil price vaults to record 125.98 dollars

LONDON (AFP) - The price of New York crude oil surged past 125 dollars per barrel on Friday, lifted by speculative demand amid concerns about tight global energy supplies, analysts said.

New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for June delivery, spiked as high as 125.98 dollars in early afternoon London trading.

And London's Brent crude contract hit an all-time pinnacle of 125.68 dollars.

"Oil futures hit fresh record highs, continuing gains from yesterday," said Sucden analyst Michael Davies on Friday.

Prices have rocketed to fresh records every day this week on the back of unrest in key producer Nigeria, other ongoing supply worries and the weak dollar which stimulates demand.

The price of oil has soared by 25 percent since the start of 2008 and has doubled since the same stage last year -- when it stood at about 62 dollars.

Oil execs see $100-or-less cost by year’s end

HOUSTON - Even as oil prices ascended to new highs of more than $124 a barrel this week, many oil and gas industry executives say they expect the price to fall significantly by year’s end, a new survey shows.

Fifty-five percent of 372 petroleum industry executives surveyed by KPMG LLP said they think the price of a barrel of crude will drop below $100 by the end of the year. Twenty-one percent of respondents predicted a barrel of oil will end the year between $101 and $110, while 15 percent forecast the year-end price to be between $111 and $120 a barrel.

UK: Thefts of heating oil rise

THE soaring price of fuel has prompted a surge in thefts of domestic heating oil from tanks outside homes and farms across the region.

...The oil thefts follows a trend of thieves taking items containing metals such as lead, copper and even platinum, which have all been soaring in value.

Scores of churches and schools have had lead stolen from their roofs, copper wiring has been stolen from alongside railway tracks. Catalytic converters have been stolen from vehicles parked outside garages and homes for the platinum they contain.

NYMEX: Speculators Aren't Driving Oil Market

Democrats in the U.S. Senate are looking beyond a summer gasoline tax holiday to focus on broader oil market fundamentals. Yesterday, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid [D-Nev.] unveiled the Consumer-First Energy Act, which calls for a revocation of tax breaks to big oil companies, a windfall profit tax and a cap on additions to the government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Included in the bill is a diktat to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] to substantially raise margin requirements for oil futures. That measure, say the bill's sponsors, would discourage excessive speculation which is blamed for fueling oil's meteoric price trajectory.

Gas prices hit 2nd straight daily record

The high price of gas has burdened motorists and truckers.

It's also put the squeeze on thousands of farmers.

They drive tractors up and down row after row of field after field to plow, seed and tend to their crops. That means they shell out big bucks for gas and diesel, which set its own record Friday at $4.269 a gallon - and there's no end in sight.

Bill Olthoff, a farmer and member of the board of directors of the Illinois Farm Bureau, says a tanker of diesel cost him $4,000 about 10 years ago. Now he pays $30,000 for a tanker, which lasts him through the year at his farm in Bourbonnais, Ill.

Delta, American, United raise prices

NEW YORK (AP) -- The three biggest U.S. carriers said Thursday they have again raised ticket prices, this time by $20 roundtrip, to recoup rapidly rising fuel costs.

The Peak Oil Crisis: Transiting to Transit

With crude oil now above $120 a barrel and threatening to go higher, it is clear that our preferred and convenient means of going places, our car, the airplane and the rental car soon are going to be parked because they will be too expensive to operate.

Like it or not, most of us are going to be riding some form of mass transit or multiple passenger vehicle – trains, buses, trolleys, car pools, van pools etc.- while waiting for our cars to be replaced with electric or higher mileage vehicles. As there are currently about 220 million cars and light trucks registered in the U.S. and 700 million or so elsewhere, the replacement process is going to be lengthy one.

GAS PRICES HIT USA HARD - special report by USA Today

Record high gas prices are prompting Americans to drive less for the first time in nearly three decades, squeezing family budgets and causing major shifts in driving habits, federal data and a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll show.

See also:

● Interest in mass transit, carpools, scooters jumps

● Some rethink where to call home

● Sports world begins to sputter

● Cheaper strategies devised

● Boaters' plans sunk

● Services trimmed, fuel efficient vehicles added

Return of the population timebomb

It has become taboo over recent years, but population, not consumption, really is the key to managing our use of the world's resources, says John Feeney,

Only since 1800, in the last 0.01 per cent of the history of Homo sapiens, has the human population shot into the billions. Now at nearly 6.7 billion, with 9 billion looming 40 years away, few environmentalists seem to care.

Yet the population-environment link is clear. Our environmental impact, as gauged by total resource consumption for a country or the world, is the product of population size and the average person's consumption.

Peru's Tribal Land Protected From Gas Concessions

LIMA - Indigenous rights groups praised Peru's petroleum agency on Thursday for excluding areas where isolated tribes live from an auction of oil and gas concessions.

Rights groups say the decision is a turnaround for Perupetro, which previously had indicated it might open up the protected areas for bidding.

A Gulf in Giving: Oil-Rich States Starve the World Food Program

WFP internal documents show that the major oil producing nations of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) gives almost nothing to the food organization, even as skyrocketing oil prices and swollen oil revenues contribute to the very crisis that the U.N. claims could soon add 100 million more people to the world’s starving masses.

Food banks urge passage of farm bill; critical shortage of food as clients increase

All of the participating food banks said their agencies are seeing familie