Dual-licensing is a popular Open Source business model, especially using the (very restrictive) Gnu General Public License (GPL). Popular opinion, as reflected (for example) in the comments on this blog posting, says that it’s either forbidden or highly questionable to do things like linking non-GPL things with GPL things, so enterprises will have to buy a dual-licensed version (instead of using the free GPL version of the software) to take advantage of closed-source enterprise components.

I run a community airport website named OurAirports, so it’s not unusual for me to get e-mail from smaller airports and flying clubs with updates, but big airports have never bothered with me.

As one would expect, O’Hare Airport’s existing web site makes no mention of a new, updated site. In this scam the scammer is not phishing for personal information or trying to scam money, but instead, is trying to get pagerank over the official O’Hare site by tricking thousands of sites into providing links.

What are they looking for? Given that the e-mail traces back to a site called huntparking.com, I’ll guess that they want to use the web traffic either to sell ads for airport parking or to sell their own parking.

The e-mail and whois info are below. Nicely done, by the way — the fake site is much better designed than O’Hare’s real site, and even the markup snippet in the e-mail is XHTML-compatible. Perhaps O’Hare Airport should consider hiring the designer instead of bringing charges.

The message

Message-ID: <D81A47BF68444410B84578142FC73DED@UserPC>
From: "Chicago O'Hare Airport" 
To: [removed]
Subject: New Chicago O’Hare International Airport website
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset=”iso-8859-1″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-Mailer: Microsoft Windows Mail 6.0.6001.18000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.0.6001.18049
X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report
X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - host.huntparking.com
X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - ourairports.com
X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12]
X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - ohare-airport.org

To whom it may concern:

We are proud to announce the launch of the new Chicago O’Hare =
International Airport website www.ohare-airport.org. It provides =
comprehensive real time flight information on arrivals, departures and =
delays, terminals and maps, parking, transportation, directions, food =
and shopping, hotels, etc.

If you find our website to be of value to you and your readers, we would =
appreciate it if you could add a link to us at your URL =
http://www.ourairports.com/airports/KORD/ where, in our opinion, it =
would be the most relevant.=20

Alternatively, you can utilize the customized link code provided below =
(just cut and paste):

<p><a href=3D”http://www.ohare-airport.org”>Chicago O’Hare =
airport</a></p>

If you have any questions, please, do not hesitate to contact us. Thank =
you for your time and consideration.

Kind regards,

Natalia Klimovich
Website Administrator
www.ohare-airport.org

Whois Information for ohare-airport.org

Domain ID:D155295366-LROR
Domain Name:OHARE-AIRPORT.ORG
Created On:07-Feb-2009 08:45:01 UTC
Last Updated On:09-Apr-2009 03:54:26 UTC
Expiration Date:07-Feb-2010 08:45:01 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com, Inc. (R91-LROR)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:GODA-059235088
Registrant Name:Alexei Pavlovitch
Registrant Street1:240 E Illinois
Registrant Street2:apt 1202
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Chicago
Registrant State/Province:Illinois
Registrant Postal Code:60611
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.3125936015
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:alex.pavlovitch@gmail.com
Admin ID:GODA-259235088
Admin Name:Alexei Pavlovitch
Admin Street1:240 E Illinois
Admin Street2:apt 1202
Admin Street3:
Admin City:Chicago
Admin State/Province:Illinois
Admin Postal Code:60611
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.3125936015
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email:alex.pavlovitch@gmail.com
Tech ID:GODA-159235088
Tech Name:Alexei Pavlovitch
Tech Street1:240 E Illinois
Tech Street2:apt 1202
Tech Street3:
Tech City:Chicago
Tech State/Province:Illinois
Tech Postal Code:60611
Tech Country:US
Tech Phone:+1.3125936015
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email:alex.pavlovitch@gmail.com
Name Server:NS07.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server:NS08.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:

Nepotism aside …

I think I would have included a link to this blog even if he weren’t my brother’s, because of passages like this:

Branding accesses our very nature as social animals, taking advantage of the good feelings we get out of loyalty and admiration towards other human beings in our tribe. But in the case of companies and products, the personality traits are conjured up in an anthropomorphic emotional construct. We “like” favourite brands. We “trust” them. And most importantly, we make them part of our tribal identity.

and this:

Traditional marketers consider setting up a Facebook presence as something you DO. The problem is, the presence is all about who you ARE.

(From Social Media: Brand, don’t sell.)

Why the disparity? Calgary is an oil city. When the recession hit and resource prices tanked, Calgary was the centre of a huge housing bubble because of high oil prices, and Vancouver was in a major real-estate bubble of its own because of the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics, so both had further to fall — they’re just adjusting back to realistic market prices.

Toronto is the financial centre of Canada, and we all know what happened to the finance industry, but it has a very wide employment base outside of finance, and vibrant immigrant community, and a lot of pent-up housing demand, so I’m not surprised to see a more moderate fall there.

Ottawa is the capital, so it has government jobs as a cushion, but it’s also one of Canada’s leading tech centres. While big companies like Nortel and Corel are in terminal decline, small tech companies around Ottawa are doing very well. I live here, and as far as I can tell, for-sale signs on lawns still don’t stay up too long.

Montreal. Montreal? It was the awkward poor sibling of big Canadian cities for a couple decades after the whole separatism thing started (and people and head offices fled to Ottawa and Toronto), but it’s been coming back recently — the streets aren’t as dirty, the heroin addicts are panhandling more politely, and after all, it’s still Montreal. Just like Manhattan in the 1970s at its dirtiest and most dysfunctional was still more fun than any other U.S. city, Montreal will always be the coolest Canadian city to visit. The suburban (and English-speaking) west end of the island is a huge centre for pharmaceutical companies, and perhaps they’re doing well in the recession (I haven’t checked).

Not much to say about Halifax, which is a much smaller city than the others, except that it’s a nice place, and I’m glad to see they’re doing well.

Perhaps when I find February or March figures, the news will be worse; then again, as a measurement tool, CHPI can make things look a lot worse than RSPI, so it’s just as likely that things are better than these number suggest.

Basically, we’ve slipped back to between 2004 and 2007, depending on which indicator you look at (a little further, probably, if I included stock market indices). That’s not great (and our population is a bit larger), but ask yourself this: how did you feel in 2004? Were you as worried as you are now? Did it feel like a depression then?

I know things aren’t great — especially for people who’ve been laid off and/or lost their retirement savings or homes — but I think the (mainly left-wing) pundits (journalists, bloggers, and politicians) who keep screaming words like “depression” are just exploiting fear to try to get more attention for themselves, just like the (mainly right-wing) pundits did with anti-terrorism fears after 2001-09-11.

It’s a vicious circle, because they have to keep upping the ante to stand out from the others, until we’re all convinced we’ll be standing in soup lines tomorrow (assuming anyone can afford to supply us with soup).

Truscott’s initial wrongful conviction took place 40 years ago, but if anything, he’s better known now than any time before. Three men with more recentky-overturned convictions — Robert Baltovich, Bill Mullins-Johnson, and James Driskell — are also getting on-going press coverage, TV documentaries, etc.

I had never thought anything unusual about this phenomenon, until the Mullins-Johnson article was suddenly deleted from Wikipedia, with no debate — the Wikipedia editor had assumed that a wrongful conviction was so obviously unnotable that no discussion was required, but when I objected, he did restore the article and start a proper RFD debate.

When Wikipedia has articles about minor, imaginary videogame characters, it seemed unimaginable to me at first that editors would try to delete an article about a real, famous person, but so far, there seems little support for keeping the article. Thinking about it, I suddenly realized that the wrongfully-convicted aren’t famous in the U.S. Sure, I could Google around and find a few names, but in the U.S., serving 10 years for a murder you didn’t commit does not automatically make you a household name — in fact, it might not even result in a national news story.

Perhaps there’s a strong feeling of discomfort around the issue in a country that still executes so many of its citizens. Or perhaps, because the wrongly-convicted often have prior criminal records, Americans don’t feel that their convictions were such a serious injustice. Many U.S. jurisdictions (all?) have very small limits on the compensation you can receive for a wrongful conviction, while in Canada, someone who has been in jail for years could receive well over $1M — a big news story in itself.

I have a conflict of interest with the RFD for the Bill Mullins-Johnson article because I was the original author (though many others have since contributed), but if the article is going to be deleted, I’d hate it to be simply from lack of debate. So, Wikipedia users, whether you agree or disagree with me, please visit the RFD page and have your say.

Frankly, the majority of customer problem descriptions I’ve seen and heard — including those I’ve been involved in — have been either poorly thought out or complete B.S. I know I won’t always be allowed to use this, but as a consultant and as a poor fool who still dreams of his own startup, I’ve written a checklist of six criteria that a real customer problem must meet:

1. It uses the customer’s language, not yours — if any words or ideas need to be defined or explained, then it’s probably not really a customer problem.

2. It describes a business need — it should not mention the proposed technical solution (such as a social network, CMS, etc.).

3. It is recognizable — the customer is already familiar with the problem or with a very similar one, and doesn’t need to be convinced that the problem exists (thought she might not be aware of its severity).

4. It is quantifiable — even if you can’t assign a number yet, it is the kind of problem that has a cost expressed in concrete units such as money, time, subscriptions, support calls, page views, etc.

5. It is compelling — you can demonstrate potential benefits, savings, etc. that justify the time, cost, and effort for the customer to try to solve it.

6. It is succinct — you can describe summarize the problem meaningfully in a single, short sentence (of course, you’re always free to elaborate it somewhere else).

The passing grade on this checklist is 100%. If only one checklist item is missing, the problem is likely just wishful thinking — if your product or project succeeds, it will be despite your idea of the problem, not because of it.

Note: It’s actually easy to come up with problem descriptions that meet all six criteria; what’s hard is coming up with problem descriptions that meet all six criteria and have credible technical solutions.

Facebook and other US sites have no problem sending SMS messages to my Canadian cell phone, but Twitter hasn’t had as much luck — maybe they’ve been looking for ways to avoid paying bulk SMS charges. However, they recently announced that customers of Bell Mobility (one of Canada’s big two wireless providers) can now send and receive tweets again, with “no limits and no added fees (beyond your normal texting plan).”

Not so, says Bell. According to this story, Bell Mobility is treating Twitter as a “premium service”, and will charge CAD 0.15 for every tweet sent or received, no matter what text plan you have.

That’s actually worse than the status quo. On my Canadian Rogers cell phone, I can’t receive tweets right now, but I don’t pay anything extra to send them with my current text plan.

I guess I’ll stick with Facebook status updates instead. They work fine with Canadian phones, and Rogers hasn’t (yet) decided that they’re a premium service.

According to the initial stories, Figge swam from the Cape Verde Islands to Trinidad (3,380 km direct distance) in 24 days, spending up to 8 hours/day in the water. Since this is a tech blog, I know that you’ve all already started to do the arithmetic, and you’re right. Even in the ideal case (no course deviations, 8 hours/day swimming), she would have had to maintain an average pace of 17.6 km/hr to pull that off. She did have the benefit of swimming with the North Equatorial Current at her back — it’s a weak current, but let’s allow her 0.6 km/hr for it, leaving an average required pace of 17.0 km/hr.

The men’s world record for 50m freestyle (front crawl) swimming is currently 21.8 seconds, or 8.3 km/hr. That includes a huge initial speed-up from the leap off the podium, and even then, the pace the brings the world’s top elite swimmers to absolute exhaustion in only 0.05 km. It also takes place in a calm swimming pool with a swimmer wearing a speedo, rather than against huge ocean swells with the swimmer wearing a wetsuit. Even in the pool, no one could keep up that pace for minutes, much less hours or days.

In fact, it was soon confirmed that Figge swam only about 400 kilometers over those 24 days: an impressive distance for an amateur athlete at any age, much less in her 50s, but not the distance across the Atlantic Ocean.

So I guess that “swimming the Atlantic” does not mean the same as “swimming across the Atlantic.” I’m curious about what it does mean, because there are two other people who became famous for “swimming the Atlantic”:

• Guy Delage claimed to have swum the Atlantic with the assistance of a kickboard, covering 2,100 nautical miles (3,889 kilometers) in 51 days. Even assuming 8 hours/day, that works out to an average pace of 9.5 km/hr.
• Benoît Lecomte claimed to have swum the Atlantic unassisted, covering 3,716 miles (5,980 km) in 72 days, swimming 6–8 hours/day. Even assuming 8 hours every day, that works out to an average pace of 10.4 km/hr.

By contrast, in swimming across Lake Ontario in 1959, Marilyn Bell took 21 hours to cover 52 kilometers direct distance, for an average pace of 2.5 km/hr. People have called even that into question, since with currents and primitive navigation equipment in the support boat, she may have actually had to cover a much greater distance, but at least it doesn’t strain credibility.

(The original title of this posting was “Swimming the Atlantic” vs. grade-four arithmetic, but that seemed to be tempting fate, since I’ve likely made at least one arithmetic error in this posting.)

Welcome to the club …

The first tag, top150, shows the world’s 150 busiest airports by passenger traffic (as of 2007). Central Africa has lots of people, but not much money, so it’s empty. Australia and Canada have high per-capita incomes but a low population density, so they also appear mostly empty in the map, with only a handful of top-150 airports each. The U.S. has a lot of land but also a lot of money and a lot of people, so it’s very full. India and the Persian Gulf countries are starting to fill up, as incomes rise and more people travel.

… but not this club

The second tag, top30, shows a much more exclusive club, the world’s 30 busiest airports by passenger traffic. These are the absolute busiest hubs, and it takes a rich and populous city or country to support one. Not by accident, fully half of these airports (15) are in the United States, and 8 more are in Western Europe, leaving only 7 for the rest of the world to share.

In this club, the 1.3 billion citizens of China are represented by only two airports (including Hong Kong), and the 1.2 billion citizens of India are not represented at all. Canada and Australia also don’t make the cut (too few people).

Of course, there are other considerations: aside from its money, land, and people, the heavy air passenger traffic in the U.S. may also reflect its horrendous rail system.