The water wars intensify

• East Bay Water District Eyes Emergency Supply From Sacramento River

  It would mark the first time EBMUD has used a supply of water it first arranged to purchase from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 1970. The agreement would have allowed the district to pump as much as 150,000 acre-feet of emergency water from the American River east of Sacramento. After decades of environmental litigation, the district became partners with the Sacramento County Water Agency in a $900 million project that looks much different from the original plan.

  The two agencies jointly built a pumping plant on the Sacramento River in Freeport, just south of the capital city. The plant, opened in 2011, allows EBMUD to ship water from the Sacramento through a series of canals to its Mokelumne Aqueduct, which serves the East Bay. Under its contract with the Bureau of Reclamation, EBMUD can draw on the Sacramento River supply only during dry years.

• California to dam Delta sloughs if drought persists

  The temporary dams would consist of rock barriers piled across the entrance to three Delta channels: Sutter Slough and Steamboat Slough, branching off the Sacramento River near Courtland; and False River, branching off the San Joaquin River near Oakley.

  In the case of the first two sloughs, DWR project manager Mark Holderman said the goal is to make the most of limited freshwater outflows that might be available in the main stem of the Sacramento River. The barriers would allow that fresh water to be held in the river, rather than branching into the side channels. This would concentrate its force and better hold back sediment that naturally would creep in from San Francisco Bay as river flows dwindle because of the drought.

Gorgeous Internet maps

CNN have a beautiful gallery online: This is what the Internet actually looks like: The undersea cables wiring the Earth

The information age is powered by thin fiber-optic cables buried in the sea bed, spreading between continents to connect the most remote corners of the planet. These great arteries account for practically all of our international web traffic, and each one has been logged by Washington research firm Telegeography in its interactive Submarine Cable Map 2014. The company's research director Alan Mauldin told CNN about the world's underwater networks.

The full map is on the TeleGeography web site: Submarine Cable Map 2014.

I'd love to buy the full map for my wall at work, but it's a bit out of my price range. To be accurate, it's priced at about 10x what I'd be willing to pay.

Still, the online version of the map is simply beautiful.

Are the cables actually "buried in the sea bed"? For some reason I thought they were just resting on top of the sea floor.

Wow, has it really been 18 years since Neal Stephenson wrote Mother Earth Mother Board ? Time sure passes quickly...

Here's what Stephenson said, at the time:

The amplifiers need power - up to 10,000 volts DC, at 0.9 amperes. Since public 10,000-volt outlets are few and far between on the bottom of the ocean, this power must be delivered down the same cable that carries the fibers. The cable, therefore, consists of an inner core of four optical fibers, coated with plastic jackets of different colors so that the people at opposite ends can tell which is which, plus a thin copper wire that is used for test purposes. The total thickness of these elements taken together is comparable to a pencil lead; they are contained within a transparent plastic tube. Surrounding this tube is a sheath consisting of three steel segments designed so that they interlock and form a circular jacket. Around that is a layer of about 20 steel "strength wires" - each perhaps 2 mm in diameter - that wrap around the core in a steep helix. Around the strength wires goes a copper tube that serves as the conductor for the 10,000-volt power feed. Only one conductor is needed because the ocean serves as the ground wire. This tube also is watertight and so performs the additional function of protecting the cable's innards. It then is surrounded by polyethylene insulation to a total thickness of about an inch. To protect it from the rigors of shipment and laying, the entire cable is clothed in good old-fashioned tarred jute, although jute nowadays is made from plastic, not hemp.

Oh wait, no, there's more later (Stephenson wrote a LONG article...). Here it is:

At Tong Fuk, FLAG is encased in pipe out to a distance of some 300 meters from the beach manhole. When the divers have got all of that pipe bolted on, which will take a week or so, they will make their way down the line with a water jet that works by fluidizing the seabed beneath it, turning it into quicksand. The pipe sinks into the quicksand, which eventually compacts, leaving no trace of the buried pipe.

Beyond 300 meters, the cable must still be buried to protect it from anchors, tickler chains, and otter boards (more about this later).

Well, that wasn't it, exactly, as that's still talking about the part where the cable reaches land. How about this part:

These nozzles fluidize the seabed and thus make it possible for the giant blade to penetrate it. Along the trailing edge of the blade runs a channel for the cable so that as the blade works its way forward, the cable is gently laid into the bottom of the slit. The barge carries a set of extensions that can be bolted onto the top of the injector so it can operate in water as deep as 40 meters, burying the cable as deep as 9 meters beneath the seabed. This sufficed to lay the cable out for a distance of 10 kilometers from Tong Fuk. Later, another barge, the Chinann, will come to continue work out to 100 meters deep and will bury both legs of the FLAG cable for another 60 kilometers out to get them through a dangerous anchorage zone.

Still seems like we're talking about the part close to shore.

OK, no, here it is (I knew I remembered it):

The route between the landing station at Songkhla, Thailand, and the one at Lan Tao Island, Hong Kong, might have a certain length when measured on a map, say 2,500 kilometers. But if you attach a 2,500-kilometer cable to Songkhla and, wearing a diving suit, begin manually unrolling it across the seafloor, you will run out of cable before you reach the public beach at Tong Fuk. The reason is that the cable follows the bumpy topography of the seafloor, which ends up being a longer distance than it would be if the seafloor were mirror-flat.

Over long (intercontinental) distances, the difference averages out to about 1 percent, so you might need a 2,525-kilometer cable to go from Songkhla to Lan Tao. The extra 1 percent is slack, in the sense that if you grabbed the ends and pulled the cable infinitely tight (bar tight, as they say in the business), it would theoretically straighten out and you would have an extra 25 kilometers. This slack is ideally molded into the contour of the seafloor as tightly as a shadow, running straight and true along the surveyed course. As little slack as possible is employed, partly because cable costs a lot of money (for the FLAG cable, $16,000 to $28,000 per kilometer, depending on the amount of armoring) and partly because loose coils are just asking for trouble from trawlers and other hazards. In fact, there is so little slack (in the layperson's sense of the word) in a well-laid cable that it cannot be grappled and hauled to the surface without snapping it.

So at least when Stephenson wrote about this, twenty years ago, the cable was only buried in the seabed close to shore, to prevent it from being damaged by dragging anchors and other dangerous things that arise in the shallow ocean close to land.

Out deeper, they just laid it down on the sea floor.

So, has that changed? If you know, let me know.

Europa Universalis IV: Mat Rus

Although the first expansion pack for EU IV has now been out for more than a month, I'm still playing the base game.

(What? I've only been playing for 5 months.)

I declared the Ottomans Campaign over, and looked elsewhere for a fresh start.

This time, I'm playing as Muscovy.

I've made it to 1454 so far; the first decade is complete.

In the early game, I'm struggling to overcome tiny northern countries with names like Tver, Ryazan, Pskov, and Yaroslavl, just barely earning enough to keep my country alive in the tough frozen winters, while I try to keep peace and mostly avoid the activity of the central asian tribes to my east.

But I can already see that the only hope for prosperity lies with the trade routes and ocean access to the south, in places like Armenia, Georgia, Abkhasia, and Crimea.

It's oh, so au courant.

Reading my way to Ireland, part 1: travel guides

We're hoping to travel to Ireland before too long.

So I've been doing my typical thing: reading.

This is not the first time we've thought about visiting Ireland. So, tucked away in a closet somewhere, we had:

• Michelin Green Guide Ireland

  THE GREEN GUIDE, the perfect travel companion: a discerning and up-to-date source of information. Practical and comprehensive, it offers suggestions on what to see and what to do, background on history and cultural heritage.

I really like the organization of this book, and the way the information is presented. It's easy to read, illustrated with lots of nice pictures, and full of useful information.

It's over a decade old at this point, and Ireland has changed a lot in the last ten years. But the editors of the Michelin Guide are to be congratulated, as the book doesn't seem very dated at all. They wisely chose to focus on more-or-less timeless topics, such as descriptions of the various towns and cities, points of interest, historical background, ideas for things to do.

But, it's ten years old.

So, I bought two other similar guides, to fill in the gaps and provide more recent information:

• Rick Steves' Ireland 2013

  Rick’s candid, humorous advice will guide you to good-value hotels and restaurants. He’ll help you plan where to go and what to see, depending on the length of your trip. You’ll get up-to-date recommendations on what is worth your time and money. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves guidebook is a tour guide in your pocket.

• Lonely Planet Ireland (Country Travel Guide)

  You can trust our travel information because Lonely Planet authors visit the places we write about, each and every edition. We never accept freebies for positive coverage so you can rely on us to tell it like it is.

Each book has a slightly different style: the Michelin guide is very corporate in its approach, with very little personality. Dry, but useful.

The Rick Steves organization have been publishing books (and leading guided tours, which I think is where they actually got started) for many, many years. Where the Michelin team stick mostly to the facts, and are reluctant to make recommendations, the Rick Steves books are less neutral, and have a point of view.

The Rick Steves books are also more selective in what they cover. Where the Michelin guide tries to cover everything, the Rick Steves guide selects destinations that they enjoy, and provide lots of coverage of those, simply omitting the things they don't like. This means that almost everything in the book has a good rating and is a recommended choice, which gives the book an overall cheery, positive tone that makes the entire exercise of trip planning much more light-hearted.

The Lonely Planet organization have also been publishing guides for decades. They got their start focusing on trips for youth, to exotic and less-traveled destinations, but have expanded to the point that they pretty much cover everywhere.

Lonely Planet's focus on travel-for-the-young means that they tend to include a lot of coverage of hostels, low-priced eateries, public transit, and other practical matters, and rather less coverage of romantic getaways, cultural history, etc. Their guides also include pursuits like canoeing, surfing, and other outdoor activities that are clearly aimed at the younger traveler.

The Lonely Planet crew are also more willing to "tell it like it is," and will tell you if a place is likely to be "mobbed in the summer," "isolated if the unthinkable happens and it rains," or if it's an "unflinchingly honest town with a tough past."

I like having all three guides to compare and contrast. It's a lot of information, but I'd rather have too much than too little.

I'm not sure if I'll carry any of them along in the suitcase, though, as they're all a bit heavy. I'll have to think about this and see if there's one of them that seems like the best one to lug around when the actual trip arrives.

Satoshi is ...

... Satoshi?

At least, that's what Newsweek claims: The Face Behind Bitcoin

Of course, there is also the chance "Satoshi Nakamoto" is a pseudonym, but that raises the question why someone who wishes to remain anonymous would choose such a distinctive name. It was only while scouring a database that contained the registration cards of naturalized U.S. citizens that a Satoshi Nakamoto turned up whose profile and background offered a potential match. But it was not until after ordering his records from the National Archives and conducting many more interviews that a cohesive picture began to take shape.

Temple City, eh? I remember my mom used to take me to the skateboard park by the Whittier Narrows dam, which is only a mile from Temple City.

Newsweek even runs a picture.

Let the madness begin.

Dear Ester: a very short review

I'm not sure what exactly to make of Dear Esther.

Is it an adventure game?

Many would say yes, and I think I'd agree. You are placed on an island, and your controls allow you to move around the island, to explore different areas and visit different locations. You can look at items, zoom in on them, view them from different angles.

However, you can't actually interact with anything.

The closest you get to interacting is that, from time to time, the game issues a short speech, as if from an off-stage narrator.

The speeches, as you progress through the game, form a story; at least, they form the fragments of a story. It's never really clear whether the narrator of these speeches is you, or somebody who came before you. And it's never really clear whether the character being referred to in the 3rd person in these speeches is you, or whether the narrator is telling somebody else's story to you.

The story clearly takes place on the island, though.

So in that respect many would call Dear Esther a work of art, an interactive story, a computer-driven epic poem. And I think I'd agree with that, too. It's clearly a performance, and, as art, it certainly is well-crafted.

The story is a compelling one, too. It's a tragic story, one told many times before, but told quite well, both in words and in more subtle ways (e.g., via the placement of candles on the path, or the paintings on the walls of the cave). More than once I found myself overcome with emotion as the game delivered yet another glimpse into its private world.

Dear Esther also compels on a purely aesthetic level. The artwork is beautiful; the music is gorgeous. The voyage through the caves in the middle of the island is just stunning. It reminds me of the first time I played Myst, 20 years ago; during those days I was often content just to walk around the island and gaze at the scenery.

It's clear, I believe, that Dear Esther is trying to do more than "just" tell a story. The visuals and the monologues and the wandering around all work together, full of allegory and metaphor. There are biblical references: quotations from Acts are painted on objects in the game, as well as referenced in the speeches, and stories such as Lot's wife, or the pilgrimage to Damascus, are touched upon, as well as less literal, but still clear, biblical references:

I have run out of places to climb. I will abandon this body and take to the air.

And there are other literary references, such as this fairly clear nod to John Donne's No Man Is An Island:

he would have realised he was his own shoreline, as am I. Just as I am becoming this island ...

I played through Dear Esther rather quickly, thirstily, eager to push the story forward. Others, I am told, savor this journey more slowly, even re-play it to gain a different perspective. The verses delivered by the narrator are randomized, so you may find your second time through the game to be a quite different experience.

So what, then, is Dear Esther? Is it a meditation on the perils of addiction? Is it a transcendent expression of pure love? Is it a commentary on the impermanence and mortality of man as he strives to create meaning that will outlive him? Is it "simply" a work of art, simultaneously none and all of the above?

I'll close with this, my favorite speech, hoping it reveals both nothing and everything:

I’ve begun my voyage in a paper boat without a bottom; I will fly to the moon in it. I have been folded along a crease in time, a weakness in the sheet of life. Now, you’ve settled on the opposite side of the paper to me; I can see your traces in the ink that soaks through the fibre, the pulped vegetation. When we become waterlogged, and the cage disintegrates, we will intermingle. When this paper aeroplane leaves the cliff edge, and carves parallel vapour trails in the dark, we will come together.

The open plan debate, redux

Here come the open plan fanatics again, with a massive piece in this week's NYT business section: The Monuments of Tech.

software is invisible and change is high technology’s most valued commodity. Insubstantial as a cubicle seems, in the tech industry it has given way to the long tables and broad whiteboards of open-plan offices, where everyone taps into a common Wi-Fi signal. Office teams grow or shrink in these open rooms, moving work and information as quickly as possible.

"Change is high technology's most valued commodity"?

Oh, please.

I am instantly reminded of the greatest Dilbert ever.

Nevertheless, on charge the open space zealots, trumpeting their self-appointed brilliance:

The buildings hold 6,000 people. In the past, Facebook moved around as many as 1,000 of them a month, reassigning them to new short-term projects. Walkways double as spaces for ambulatory meetings, held on the go so they are short and decisive.

Casual meeting areas are set off from the open plan by squares of plywood hanging from the ceiling, a visual “under construction” reference meant to reinforce the company’s ethos. Facebook even spent money to expose its networking wires, which dangle along the ceiling.

“It’s designed to change thinking,” said John Tenanes, who oversees Facebook’s buildings as its director of real estate. “Even if the meeting doesn’t move faster, we want people coming up with new stuff.”

Yes, indeed: new stuff. I suppose that, if you are a business journalist, you spent enough time hearing about Heraclitus in your journalism classes to dispense wisdom such as

Here, as at many other tech companies, is a sense that nothing is permanent, that any product can be dislodged from greatness by something newer. It’s the aesthetic of disruption: We must all change, all the time.

and

Facebook’s all-night hackathons aren’t just an echo of crashing out a project before a college final: They are efforts to keep experimenting, to try something new before some scrappy start-up does.

And so the article continues, for thousands of words, slathering praise on every little eccentricity of Twitter, Facebook, and Google, full of nonsense like:

Doors now seem an impediment, slowing the making of something new.

Some of the article's observations are sensible, such as the Google Real Estate team's finding (a "result of detailed study"):

“If people are more satisfied with the temperature, they are more comfortable and creative,” Mr. Ravitz said. The goal is to make 80 percent or more of the population happy with the office climate.

Well, duh. I hope they didn't spend too much money on that detailed study (and I pity the engineers who were the unwilling subjects of that research).

And Google Real Estate's findings that office chairs matter, and that noise matters, and that air quality matters, and that lighting matters, show that perhaps common sense may, some day, prevail.

But it's just bizarre, all this breathless desire to be "short and decisive," to be ever "under construction," to always be "coming up with new stuff."

Certainly there are great engineers at Twitter and Google and Facebook, and they have indeed done some brilliant work. But not, I am certain, while sitting in "booths that look as if they were lifted from an upscale diner," nor while on "the kind of angular couches and chairs that Dick Van Dyke would be happy to use for a pratfall," nor while having to tolerate the fact that "irregular soft cubes serve as impromptu meeting areas."

And, I can guarantee you, none of these frantic "meetings, held on the go" cover the kind of work that actually matters in software.

Building a cryptographic key-exchange algorithm, a distributed consensus protocol, a secure networking library, a cache-conscious database index, or a lock-free hash table, requires deep concentration, sustained over long periods of time, with as few interruptions as possible.

Trust me: I know. I haven't done all these things, but I've done a number of them. Quietly, patiently, and without ever even once finding that "individual file cabinets on rollers that can be moved to wherever an employee will next be working" would have improved the process, or the result.

Buried at the VERY END of the article, after all the chatter about consultants from Disney, Gehry-designed buildings, multi-colored campus bicycles, and other folderol, the piece finally admits:

“The harder we work,” he said, “the more important it is to have space to get away from the chaos for a while.”

Yes.

That should have been the lede, not the closer.

Meanwhile, a much smaller article, on the following page of the very same business section, but (refreshingly) free of full-color pictures and celebrity sightings (Sheryl Sandberg! Dick Costolo! Mark Zukerberg!), is a mother lode of calm reasoning: Where Sounds Have No Barrier

Auditory distraction occurs when a noise forces you to switch your attention away and then back to your work, Professor Lee said. This amounts to a “cognitive load” that makes it hard to maintain your concentration, he said. Open-plan offices are particularly challenging for the hearing-impaired, he said, because hearing aids tend to amplify noises indiscriminately, making it harder to listen selectively.

In open work spaces, even small noises have the potential to distract us, Dr. Goldsmith said: Because so much hearing occurs unconsciously, we may feel stressed from working in an open office and not know why. Noise “is really quite insidious in that sense,” he said.

Sadly, all this common sense doesn't stop the article's author from interjecting:

It’s true that when overheard conversations aren’t irritating and irrelevant, they can impart useful pieces of information and enhance collaboration. That’s one of the reasons that tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google favor open offices.

Well, sure, if those overheard conversations aren't irritating and irrelevant, they might be useful. But that's the point! They are irritating and irrelevant.

But that's not why those tech companies built offices like these.

Those tech companies did it because they thought it was cool and trendy and novel, and because it got publications like the New York Times to write long front-page articles with full-color pictures and lots of name dropping.

Perhaps, someday, when they finally realize what a disaster it was for the poor engineers who are trying to endure those zoos, they will stop seeing doors as an "impediment," will stop having the furniture "replaced with no advance warning," will stop thinking that "ample sticks and twigs on the wall" is somehow useful to an engineer.

In the meantime, at least for now, at work I'm lucky enough to have an environment where I can (mostly) sit quietly, blocked from (most) interruptions, in a very nice chair, with a thermostat I can control and a large skylight nearby, and try, somehow, to get some real work done.