English AG Opined Iraq War was Illegal—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)

English AG Opined Iraq War was Illegal—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine).

Fast-food eatery sizzles in N. Korea

Singapore newspaper article on the fast-food restaurant set up in Pyongyang by a group of Singaporean businessmen with unnamed North Korean business partners.

Fast-food eatery sizzles in N. Korea.
Jaime Ee, Straits Times, 29 Nov 2009

Behind the headlines that reclusive North Korea recently opened its first fast-food restaurant are three Singaporean businessmen.

Two of them, Mr Quek Chek Lan, 65, and Mr Timothy Tan, 52, got the nod to set up the restaurant, called Samtaesong or ‘three big stars’, in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

It serves Western fare such as hamburgers, french fries and waffles, and was officially opened in May.

In an interview last week – after much effort to get the busy men to find the time to talk – Mr Quek and Mr Tan shared with The Sunday Times how they set up shop in the communist country.

It began two years ago when Mr Quek, managing director of the Aetna Group, which deals in metal and minerals, was approached by his North Korean business partners to invest in the country.

His company has been trading with the North Koreans in steel and minerals for more than 25 years.

Mr Quek then roped in his business friend Mr Tan, whom he had met eight years ago in Shanghai.

Together, they set up Sinpyong International to invest in North Korea.

Asked if he was worried about investing in North Korea, Mr Tan admitted that he prepared himself mentally for red tape.

Initially, the two men mulled over business ideas such as opening a supermarket. But after market research, they were drawn to the idea of a fast-food restaurant.

‘There was nothing like that there at that time. It was probably the only country in the world that doesn’t have fast food,’ said Mr Tan.

Despite neither of them having any experience in the fast-food business, the pair quickly got down to work.

They roped in a third person, Mr Patrick Soh – who holds the franchise in several Asian countries for Waffletown USA – to help them set up the operation and train the local staff in Pyongyang.

Waffletown USA is not a big regional player and it currently has only two franchise outlets in Singapore, in Balmoral Plaza and in Ngee Ann Polytechnic.

Samtaesong, however, is not a Waffletown franchise, Mr Quek stressed. ‘We borrowed the concept and menu, and tapped Mr Soh’s expertise, but it’s not a Waffletown franchise,’ he said.

Early this year, a four-man team from North Korea discreetly came to Singapore to sample the fare at the Balmoral Plaza outlet in Bukit Timah.

‘They tried the food and especially liked the waffle, burgers and fried chicken,’ said Mr Soh, 56, beaming.

Mr Quek said the restaurant’s site was picked by his North Korean business partners. Located in the heart of Pyongyang, it is next to a subway station and within walking distance of various universities and foreign embassies.

In November last year, the Singaporean partners began making trips to North Korea to set up the 246 sq m restaurant. It occupies one floor in a two-storey building and can seat about 80 people.

Furniture, styled after fast-food joints in Singapore, was shipped in from China.

Kitchen equipment and ingredients, such as the seasoning for the fried chicken and the waffle mix, were flown in from Singapore.

The beef and the chicken are sourced in North Korea, while a local factory supplies the burger buns and patties according to Mr Soh’s recipe.

In all, Mr Quek and Mr Tan spent about US$200,000 (S$276,500) to set up the shop.

Mr Soh let on that the menu was modified to appeal to North Korean tastebuds. For instance, the side dish coleslaw was substituted with kimchi, the spicy pickled cabbage popular among Koreans. The burgers also come with more vegetables.

‘They don’t like the idea of junk food, so we made the menu more healthy,’ Mr Soh said.

Local draught beer is also served along with soft drinks like Coke.

The restaurant has 14 staff members, mostly young women, who don colourful aprons while flipping burgers and cooking french fries.

Mr Soh said the restaurant initially encountered frequent power failures. But that was quickly resolved after they managed to wire an electrical cable to their store.

One condition was that they could not market the business openly. Mr Tan said: ‘It’s all based on word of mouth. It’s not like in Singapore, where you can advertise on TV or in the newspapers.’

Still, as the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding – or the bun, in this case.

Since the restaurant first opened its doors on May 28, customers, including foreign students and embassy staff, have been streaming in. The outlet opens every day from 11am to 9pm.

Prices are listed in euros, but US dollars are accepted too.

Among its most popular items is the burger, known as ‘minced beef and bread’. It costs between 1.20 euros and 1.70 euros (S$2.50 and S$3.50). The most expensive item on the menu is the crispy fried chicken, at slightly less than 3 euros.

Mr Soh said locals have already used the restaurant as a venue for their children’s birthday parties.

Two more outlets may sprout in Pyongyang. Also in the works are a Western-style beer garden and a supermarket.

Asked if other fast-food companies may try to break into the market, Mr Tan said: ‘We cannot stop them, but it’s not so straightforward. People may try to go in to do this but it’s not so easy.’

Agreeing, Mr Quek added: ‘In North Korea, having connections is very important. If you don’t have contacts there, you can’t do business.’

Pirate Party

Another link filed for future reference http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/26/filesharing-pirate-party-uk-downloads

“At the moment, big businesses is saying that we steal handbags, and we say let’s talk about what copyright is about,” he says. The original purpose of copyright, created by the Statute of Anne of 1709, was to encourage the creation of artistic works by granting a right to copy for 14 years….[The EU] has extended copyright to 95 years…

The term of copyright has been marching forward but along the way, the purpose of it has been lost, according to Robinson. Instead of encouraging artistic creation, modern copyright has made certain companies cultural gatekeepers, he argues, adding, “copyright is serving the needs of music labels, not the needs of the public, the public domain or even the artists”

Der Spiegel on privacy

Tagging two articles from Der Spiegel until I can get round to commenting on them. First on how the growing use of technology has given companies and governments the ability to spy on and even remotely erase private documents stored on individuals’ electronic devices. Second on the US government’s demands to be given the right to spy on Europeans’ financial transactions.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,637640,00.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,638509,00.html

The Public Domain

Filing for future reference till I have time to comment on this.

http://www.thepublicdomain.org/2009/07/17/were-we-smarter-100-years-ago/

Were we smarter 100 years ago..?

I have been rereading the legislative history of the 1909 Copyright Act. I have come to the conclusion that 100 years ago we were smarter about copyright, about disruptive technologies, about intellectual property, monopolies and network effects than we are today. At least, the legislative hearings were much smarter. The hearings I am looking at took place in 1906 — thanks to the wonder of Google books you can read them yourself, if you are really nerdy.

Restaurants that serve bad attitude

The Sunday Times ran an article on this list of restaurants that don’t serve free water

The most interesting part of this article was this quote from Tapas Tree,

The marketing and sales manager for The Tapas Tree Group, Ms Lyn Yip, said: ‘We find this list to be libellous, and will not hesitate to engage our lawyer if we are not removed from the list and the situation is not rectified immediately.

‘We live in a time when the influence of Web opinion cannot be ignored, so bloggers have to approach their entries with responsibility, especially when composing defamatory lists.’

I have never been to Tapas Tree and given this response from them, I don’t think I ever will. If they have a problem with a blog, the appropriate response is to contact the author and ask to have it corrected. The fact that they threaten legal action as a first response gives me a good idea of what kind of service I can expect when I go there. In fairness, it is possible that the Straits Times distorted their words in search of a good story, but unless they retract that threat, I think I will drop Tapas Tree from my list of restaurants to check out.

Data Protection in Singapore

In a reply to a question in parliament last month, Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts Lee Boon Yang said that the government was studying the introduction of data protection legislation, but this was a “complex issue” and the “review will take some time.” (Follow links for Straits Times report and extract from Hansard.)

As it turns out, the government really has been reviewing Privacy (sometimes known as Data Protection) legislation in Singapore for a v..e..r..y long time – 20 years in fact. Way back in 1989/90, the Singapore Academy of Law sub-committee on Technology and Law recommended that Singapore adopt Data Protection legislation modelled after that in Europe, Japan and other developed countries. Newspaper reports here. A summary of the sub-committee’s report is here while the full Working Paper is here (long). 

Obviously, no Privacy Laws were adopted, though the issue has bubbled back up to the surface several times. For example in 2002, then again in 2006, when Lee Boon Yang said that an inter-Ministerial committee had been formed and would make its recommendations in the middle of that year.

Humanitarian appeal for Gaza

Every time I read about the Gaza Strip, I can’t help thinking about The Pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman’s memoir of imprisonment in the Warsaw ghetto, smuggling weapons for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and eventual survival with the aid of a regular German Army officer. The book was also made into an Oscar-winning movie. Sadly, except for the gas chambers, the parallels between the Warsaw Ghetto and the Gaza Strip today are painfully obvious. At least for citizens of a post-colonial Asian state.

Bad Adobe Photoshop Elements installation experience

Can’t believe I wasted several hours over the last few days trying to install Adobe Photoshop Elements. Despite that fact that the splash screen for the trial version has a dialog for you to enter a serial number, you cannot actually activate a trial version with a purchased serial number. You must download the non-trial version from your Adobe “account” and use that installer to install a version that can be activated with your serial number.

The trial installer was still on my Desktop (after all, I had only downloaded it < 30 days ago) and I had been using that one to go through umpteen cycles of uninstall, delete all Adobe preferences, reinstall and get my serial number rejected before I noticed that I had another installer in my download folder with a slightly different name but which had a later creation date. After I used the second installer, the serial number was finally accepted !!

So for the record, the Trial installer file name was PSE_6.0_MAC_TB_WWEFGJ.dmg while the purchased version was called PSE_6.0_MAC_WWEFGJ.DMG. You must uninstall the trial (using the installer on the TB disk image) and then download the purchased installer using the Adobe Download Manager and install this version (i.e. the disk image without “TB” in its name).

Absolutely atrocious out-of-the-box customer experience. Aggravated by the online customer support agent who simply closed the case after telling me to call the 800 number for assistance.

I can’t understand why they have to have  different installers for the trial and full versions – they’re each 1.3 GB and take a long time to download. Or if they have to be different, at least remove the serial number dialog from the trial version so that we don’t waste time trying to activate a software which can never be activated and know that we have to download a different version.

Using a Qstarz BT-Q1000P GPS travel recorder with a Mac

Thanks to the wonders of Google Earth, I managed to get a fairly good fix on most of the more interesting photos I took in North Korea and even posted them on Panoramio. There were still a few places I couldn’t locate, however, and I figured there had to be an easier way than poring over satellite images.  I settled on a Qstarz BT-Q1000 Platinum GPS travel recorder not so much because it was the best – there might be better/cheaper options if I were willing to mail order – but because I needed it the next day and I managed to buy it at retail near my office.

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with it. The recorder itself works well – the hardware package is compact and picks up the signal easily. Comparing the tracks on Google Earth, accuracy is good enough, and in any case, I’m not sure whether the error is caused by Google Earth or by the Qstarz. Battery life is enough for at least one day’s journey, and it uses Nokia-compatible batteries so if you need to, it’s easy to buy extra batteries.

The only problem with it is that it does not come with Mac software in the box.  I used Fusion initially to run the Windows software on my Mac, but eventually managed to find some Free/Open Source software to communicate with the Qstarz, and better yet, the software allows me to download data using Bluetooth, even though the product manual and specs say this is not supported (even on a PC). There are 3 versions of the BT-Q1000/Q1000X/Q1000P and it’s possible that only later versions support Bluetooth data transfer.

Setting up the Bluetooth connection

First things first – switch the GPS recorder to NAV mode and select “Set up Bluetooth device” from the Bluetooth menu in the menu bar. The pass code is 0000. After clicking through the dialogs, the Qstarz should be set up as device iBT-GPS. The Mac will complain that there are no recognised services, but you can ignore that warning.

Install BT747

1. We will use the BT747 software to talk to the Qstarz. On Mac OS, we have to create a lock directory for it manually because the installer does not have administrator rights. 
2. Open a Terminal and type in the following, one line at a time:
   sudo mkdir /var/lock 
sudo chmod 777 /var/lock
   You will be prompted for your password after the first sudo command. What we are doing is creating a lock directory at /var/lock and then making it globally writeable.
3. Now install BT747 itself by clicking on “Install the Desktop version of BT747″ in this link.
4. If you get a prompt saying Mario De Weerd’s certificate has expired, accept it anyway. 
   [To suppress this prompt in future, click "Show Certificate" and then check the box that says "Always trust these certificates"]
5. Click “Yes” when Java Web Start asks if you want to create shortcuts for the application. This will create an application “BT747 Desktop.app” in your Applications folder. The installer will automatically launch BT747, which will bring us to the next step below.

Downloading data from the BT-1000P

1. After setting up the Bluetooth connection as described above, and creating the /var/lock directory, open the BT747 Desktop application. Set the GPS recorder to NAV mode.
2. Select “Bluetooth (for Mac)” (or /dev/tty.iBT-GPS-SPPSlave-1) in the pull-down dialog at the bottom of the window, and click connect. 
    
3. Download the raw data file by clicking on IBlue/Qstarz/Holux…. Theoretically, this should work with other brands/devices shown, but I’ve never tried.
    
4. Wait for the download to finish, and this should put the raw data into a .bin file at the location specified. To geotag photos using GPS Photo Linker, convert the raw data to GPX format. For a quick overview, select Google Map to generate an html file that shows your tracks overlaid on Google Maps. The files will appear in the output directory after clicking “Convert”. You can limit the data to be converted using the date filter.
   

 Geotagging your photos

GPS Photo Linker works well for me. It automatically adds the position infomation to the photo meta data and optionally adds city/state information as well. Supports a variety of photo formats including jpeg and the Olympus raw format.

All the software I mentioned above is donation-ware so while you can use them free of charge, you are encouraged to make a donation to the authors via Paypal.

Update

[[[ BT747 and GPS Photo Linker have both been updated. Both now support interactive geotagging and direct connection to the Qstarz GPS device. Photo Linker 2.0 has a far snazzier interface but it is now shareware (US$50 with 30-day trial). The main advantage of the new version is that it is integrated with GPS Babel so the application can download track files directly from a variety of GPS devices as well as tag photos from an existing track file. BT747 has added the ability to geotag photos interactively or in batches but remains free, admittedly with a clunkier interface. ]]]

USB driver for BT-Q1000

*** Due to incompatibility between the SiLabs USB driver and Windows virtualisation software (both Parallels and Fusion), I now recommend NOT installing the USB driver unless you cannot get Bluetooth to work or you are sure you will never use Windows on your Mac ***

Alternatively, if your Mac doesn’t have Bluetooth or you prefer to use USB, you can install a USB driver from Silicon Labs. This should work with any version of the BT-Q1000 including the non-Platinum versions. In this case, select “USB (for Linux,Mac)” or “/dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART” in step 2 of Downloading data…. BT747 only seems to load the USB driver if the GPS recorder is connected when the program starts up, so you must connect the GPS recorder to your Mac’s USB bus before starting the BT747 program. It doesn’t matter whether the switch is on NAV or LOG, both USB and Bluetooth will work regardless Occasionally, the program can’t make the connection to the Qstarz. In that case, just try switching off the GPS recorder and exiting the BT747 program, then switching on the recorder (and plugging in the USB cable) and starting BT747 again.

USB driver (addendum)

I discovered that the Silabs Mac OS USB driver for the Qstarz cannot co-exist with Fusion. If you want to run the Qstarz Windows software under Fusion and connect the device by USB, you have to remove the Mac OS driver. In the Finder, click on Go to Folder… under the Go menu and type /System/Library/Extensions,  then delete the package SiLabsUSBDriver.kext or just drag it out of the folder. You’ll have to reboot and restart Fusion then connect the data logger to the Mac’s USB port. In Fusion, connect “Cygnal integrated CP2102…..” under the Virtual Machine/USB menu to use the Windows software provided by Qstarz. Alternatively, you can download v3 of the TravelRecorder Utility from Qstarz’s website and talk to the data logger over Bluetooth under Fusion

To go back to using the data logger on the Mac over USB, reinstall the driver using the original Silabs installer. I’ve sometimes managed to just drag the SiLabsUSBDriver.kext back into the /System/Library/Extensions folder and get it to work, but it’s more reliable to just reinstall from the original disk image.