Sunday Verse: Lucille Clifton (1936 - 2010) Homage to My Hips

Homage to My Hips


these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top

~  Lucille Clifton

The Broken Window Fallacy

I thought this was a timely video, given the preponderance of "broken window" type of thinking in the halls of Capital Hill.

How to Make Free Phone Calls From Your PC

Anyone who has followed some of my posts on the Internet knows I hold a dim view of the long term prospects for the country's major communication companies like AT&T and Verizon.  The reason is quite simple--- they are technology companies, not regulated communications utilities anymore, and anyone who doesn't recognize this is in for a continued decline in the value of their investment.  As speeds continue to increase on the Internet as a whole and cell phones continue to develop a richer feature set, these technology along will render the "cash-cow" copper line business obsolete, and take a large bite out of the revenue steam of these companies that they will have difficulty replacing.

To illustrate my point, I am going to demonstrate how to set up your PC to make free Internet based phone calls.  The only equipment you will need to pull this off is a high-speed Internet connection, a fairly modern PC, a headset with microphone and a router.  We will use Google Voice in combination with Sipgate to make the connections into the existing telephone network.  To keep costs down even further we are going to configure this on a Linux operating system with free software components.

Step 1: Establish a Google Voice Account

Go to website http://google.com/voice, set up an account and acquire a Google Voice phone number.  Google Voice can perform two main tasks: 1) provide a single phone number that can be used to forward calls to other devices such as home phone # or cell phone #, and 2) allows you to make toll free calls anywhere in the US.

Step 2: Establish a Sipgate Account

Go to website http://sipgate.com and set a free single number account that will allow you to make VoIP calls from your PC.  Their number bank is limited as of this writing and California numbers may be all that is available.

Step 3: Set up your softphone on your PC

On Linux download the Ekiga package and configure the phone.  In my case go to the Edit->Accounts option and set up an account for Sipgate.  For those who run Windows, Sipgate has a softphone on their website that can be downloaded.

The values for fields User, Authentication User and Password come from your Account on the Sipgate website under Settings->Sip Credentials.

Step 4. Launch your softphone.

Start Ekiga and it should connect to Sipgate.

Step 5. Configure Google Voice to connect to your Sipgate softphone.

Log into your Google Voice account and forward your Google Voice account to your Sipgate account phone number.

Step 6.  Download the Google Chrome browser and the Google Voice add on component.

If you have done this correctly, your Chrome browser should have a blue phone in the upper right corner that can be used to control Google Voice.

Step 7.  Make your first call.

In the Google Voice window above, type in the number to call and hit connect.  Google Voice will then call your Sipgate phone.  Ekiga will issue the following prompt.

Click accept, then Google Voice will be connected to your softphone as it initiates an outbound call to number you wish to contact.  After a few seconds, you will hear the ring of the other number being called.  This is the trick that makes this technique free-- Sipgate only charges for outbound calls initiated from the softphone; Google Voice looks like an inbound call, even though it subsequently makes the other side of the connection.  Google Voice can also be used to bypass toll charges on your traditional land line.

Step 8: Configure your Router for Quality of Server

Assuming you have a router with QoS capabilities, make the sip protocol a premium service so it will get the required bandwidth necessary to give you a satisfactory voice experience.  On my router running DD-WRT, the config looks like:

If a hack like me can figure this out, imagine what the future holds with a bunch of genius teenagers thinking outside the box.  In theory you could replace your landline with this set-up, saving yourself $600-$1200 a year.  Both Google Voice and Sipgate feature voice mail and caller id for free, and can forward calls to any phone of your choosing at no charge.  This is why I am pessimistic on the long term outlook for phone companies in particular, and believe that cable companies are vulnerable too.

Sam Zell on the "Recovery"

Sam Zell, real estate mogul, discusses his view of the economy and the recovery.

To underscore Zell's point on job creation, here's the current picture of the recovery showing the private sector still shrinking as the public sector grows:

Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist

Best-selling science writer Matt Ridley's latest book is The Rational Optimist, which explains why the author is upbeat on the prospects of a planet and a civilization that seems to lurch from one pending political, economic, or environmental catastrophe to another.

Doomsayers have it all wrong, writes Ridley, who argues that prosperity and innovation have outraced even the visions of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. He argues:

"The phrase diminishing returns is such a cliché that few people give it much thought. Picking out the pecans from a bowl of salted nuts gives diminishing returns: The pieces of pecan in the bowl get rarer and smaller. The fingers keep finding almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, or even—God forbid—Brazil nuts. Gradually the bowl, like a moribund gold mine, ceases to yield decent returns of pecan.

Now imagine a bowl of nuts that has the opposite character. The more pecans you take, the larger and more numerous they grow. That is the human experience for the last 100,000 years. The global nut bowl has yielded ever more pecans."

Reason's own science correspondent Ronald Bailey talked with Ridley recently in Washington, D.C. They discuss Ridley's book, his hopes for the future, and the policies that can improve - or undermine - the prospects for our future.

The Wizard of Westwood Passes On

Sunday Verse: Yusef Komunyakaa (1947- ) Facing It

Facing It

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

Natural Gas Makes so Much Sense the Politicians Will Never Go For It

I don't agree with Cramer much, but he is right on the money with his thoughts on natural gas. It is the key to American energy independence and reducing the trade deficits in the short and intermediate terms while the technological glitches with renewable sources of energy are being worked out.

America should be running their cars and trucks on natural gas as well as heating homes and producing electricity.  The tepid response of politicians so far is disappointing, but they tend to like complex, expensive solutions that require heavy government subsidies to succeed.  Companies are already beginning to build out a compress natural gas delivery infrastructure for cars and trucks, but this needs to be accelerated.  Honda does make a Civic that runs off of CNG, but it is $5 - $7,000 more costly than its gasoline counterpart.

As oil gets harder and harder to find and extract, and with the disaster in the gulf, its time for American to start taking advantage of one of their great natural resources to cleanly meet their energy needs.  Let's hope that government, for once, will have some foresight and make a major move to champion this strategic American resource.