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Domain: cat.org.au
Stories and comments across the archive that link to cat.org.au.
Comments · 13
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Re:Proof we are not capitalist
That is only true in a free economy.
Once the government gets involved and limits that freedom, things like black markets and "the underground" come up.
As much as that is true in a Utopia, the government is required to intervene in some situations. In The Great Money Trick, you see at the end that workers threatened the aristocrat because he was unfairly hoarding the food supplies.
As you can see in this story, the market is not capable of "properly" correcting itself. In the isolated economy shown, one person has all the power and has advanced while keeping the workers at their current level. While the current economy permits working elsewhere, this example has the aristocrat have the monopoly on work where he dictates how much he pays.
Let's say that the government won't intervene (e.g. Anarchy), this is what could happen:
- There would be blood spilled for sure. In this outcome, future employers would consider that area to be the equivalent of a bandit camp and not open up in that area.
- No work means no employment - and people don't normally go areas with unemployment. In this special case, the market does not fix itself - it rather dies out.
If the government did intervene, any of the following could happen:
- Minimum wage laws would allow the workers to save some money.
- If blood does get spilled, the government would come in and prevent future riots from occurring by arresting the rioters - thus allowing the town to have future market prospects.
- In socialist governments, food would be shipped to the town. In communist governments, the government would take food out of the warehouse and give it to the workers (or otherwise move it to somewhere it is needed) - although this situation wouldn't be occuring in communism.
These lists are not exclusive as almost anything can happen. However, the market is not capable of fixing itself because of these circumstances (monopoly, and lack of self-sustainance), and would generally die off as people leave.
If you don't have government intervention, you will have almost the same result as if there is too much government intervention. While there are differences between a anarchy and a restricted market, the end result is that you will be screwed. -
The market can't solve everything
Even if all this analysis is wasted breath, if peak oil has certainly and suddenly hit and we're all staring at a future of expensive oil, even then, I'm still not worried. [R]ising oil prices are... an invitation to corn and coal and hydrogen. For anyone with a fresh idea, expensive oil is as good as a subsidy. Expensive oil only means we shift to something else, probably something cleaner, and I'm fine with that too.
I've seen that wired article you bring up, and it's simply ridiculous. Basically it says to use all the oil we have so that we'll be forced to develop new, cleaner technologies. What it doesn't address is whether such technologies that can replace oil even exist. All alternative energy sources have one or more of the following three problems:
1. Their pollution is as hard or worse to deal with than the pollution from conventional oil (see nuclear and coal power)
2. There is not near enough of it to replace oil (see wind, geo, and hydro power)
3. They have a low Energy Profit Ratio
The last is perhaps the hardest problem to deal with. Energy Profit Ratio is (Energy obtained)/(Energy Expended). Simply it's the amount of energy you get out of an energy source vs. the energy you put in to make that source viable. For example, until recently oil has had an EPR of 20, meaning for every barrel of oil's worth of energy you expend drilling for the oil, you get 20 barrels out. That is fantastic. Unfortunately alternative energy sources just don't compare to Oil's EPR. See this page for further disadvantages of alt. energy sources.
In terms of science, Wired doesn't know what it's talking about, and apparently neither do you. Quit using silly excuses like "The scientists will figure things out" to justify your extravagant western lifestyle when you clearly are ignorant about the subject. -
Re:It doesn't matter ....
Sorry, but Rockefeller was pretty evil. Ever hear of the Ludlow coal massacre? Rockefeller got the Colorado militia, company guards and hired thugs to kill 20 innocent men, women and children who had the audacity to go on strike after nasty treatment in the coal mines.
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Re:No. We won.
No, that was David Wexelblatt.
David Dawes was the one who explained to The Open Group what they could with their X server when they tried to make it non-free. -
Re:IndymediaThe open newswires found on most sites are a fluke of history. The original newswire, on the Seattle IMC, dates from the 1999 "Battle of Seattle". It was intended solely as an experiment in relatively unfiltered, frontline reporting from any observer who could get to a computer. It's rather amazing that many IMCs haven't cracked down and just rid themselves of the often-criticized and -abused open wires, but perhaps it speaks to the committment of most volunteers to ideals of freedom of information and debate.
I'm not sure that the Open Publishing newswire was an "experiment", the Indymedia software was specifically designed around it (see below). However, regardless of its origins, Open Publishing is the very crucial reason that Indymedia has become so popular, perhaps by some measures the largest media organization in the world.
Indymedia is distinct from other alternative media precisely because it does not rely on a handful of elite commentators. It is popular because it is popular, everyone is invited to publish their media (within reasonable bounds). The momentum and growth of Indymedia is a direct result of its fundamental aim to facilitate people being able to publish their media as directly as possible.
It's open nature is also evident in the organizing structure, folks can participate in multiple areas, to multiple degrees, and fade in and out of roles. There is a balance of autonomous publishing with collective organization.
What would happen if IMC closed its Open Publishing? What would the site consist of? Posts by a few ambiguous editors? Who would produce the enormous amount of media content? If you mean to imply that all posts would be moderated, I don't see how long IMC would last before imploding. What incentive would people have to publish, apart from IMC's past popularity -- based on Open Publishing? Moderation would appear arbitrary. Who is going to donate their media content to a new organization for free, and perhaps not even published?
If it seems hard to find 'good' content on Indymedia, then why has it grown to 120+ IMCs worldwide? The reason is that while there is signal to be found among the noise, it is all created by the people themselves. And that participation is the fundamental reason Indymedia has been embraced the world over.
Some history: There was reportedly an open text-posting newswire at the 1996 Democractic Convention. Later there was the open publishing newswire at J18 in Sydney.
From "Open publishing is the same as free software":A working definition of open publishing
Open publishing means that the process of creating news is transparent to the readers. They can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the pool of stories publicly available. Those stories are filtered as little as possible to help the readers find the stories they want. Readers can see editorial decisions being made by others. They can see how to get involved and help make editorial decisions. If they can think of a better way for the software to help shape editorial decisions, they can copy the software because it is free and change it and start their own site. If they want to redistribute the news, they can, preferably on an open publishing site. -
Re:IndymediaThe open newswires found on most sites are a fluke of history. The original newswire, on the Seattle IMC, dates from the 1999 "Battle of Seattle". It was intended solely as an experiment in relatively unfiltered, frontline reporting from any observer who could get to a computer. It's rather amazing that many IMCs haven't cracked down and just rid themselves of the often-criticized and -abused open wires, but perhaps it speaks to the committment of most volunteers to ideals of freedom of information and debate.
I'm not sure that the Open Publishing newswire was an "experiment", the Indymedia software was specifically designed around it (see below). However, regardless of its origins, Open Publishing is the very crucial reason that Indymedia has become so popular, perhaps by some measures the largest media organization in the world.
Indymedia is distinct from other alternative media precisely because it does not rely on a handful of elite commentators. It is popular because it is popular, everyone is invited to publish their media (within reasonable bounds). The momentum and growth of Indymedia is a direct result of its fundamental aim to facilitate people being able to publish their media as directly as possible.
It's open nature is also evident in the organizing structure, folks can participate in multiple areas, to multiple degrees, and fade in and out of roles. There is a balance of autonomous publishing with collective organization.
What would happen if IMC closed its Open Publishing? What would the site consist of? Posts by a few ambiguous editors? Who would produce the enormous amount of media content? If you mean to imply that all posts would be moderated, I don't see how long IMC would last before imploding. What incentive would people have to publish, apart from IMC's past popularity -- based on Open Publishing? Moderation would appear arbitrary. Who is going to donate their media content to a new organization for free, and perhaps not even published?
If it seems hard to find 'good' content on Indymedia, then why has it grown to 120+ IMCs worldwide? The reason is that while there is signal to be found among the noise, it is all created by the people themselves. And that participation is the fundamental reason Indymedia has been embraced the world over.
Some history: There was reportedly an open text-posting newswire at the 1996 Democractic Convention. Later there was the open publishing newswire at J18 in Sydney.
From "Open publishing is the same as free software":A working definition of open publishing
Open publishing means that the process of creating news is transparent to the readers. They can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the pool of stories publicly available. Those stories are filtered as little as possible to help the readers find the stories they want. Readers can see editorial decisions being made by others. They can see how to get involved and help make editorial decisions. If they can think of a better way for the software to help shape editorial decisions, they can copy the software because it is free and change it and start their own site. If they want to redistribute the news, they can, preferably on an open publishing site. -
some details.The main site in question is Melbourne Indymedia, an open publishing site. As part of the collective, I have first hand knowledge of the crap that's been flung around regarding this.
Firstly, the NSW police minister asked the federal government to censor the site (and two others; noWTO and s11 , neither of which host any violent content) under the existing Australian internet censorship legislation. However, the Australian Broadcast Authority did not find anything illegal with the sites, and did not censor them. So the government has decided this is not good enough and wants tougher legislation to block dissent.
As for melbourne indymedia, the main post in question was one which does suggest to people different ways of dealing with police at protests. Being open publishing, the comment is the persons own view. Whether or not one agrees with the comment, it is important to have a discussion about it, and that is exactly what happened; a heated discussion follows the original post.
People always flail their arms about `protest being OK as long as it is within the law.' But what if the law is unjust? Are people not entitled to defend themselves against a fascist police force?
What I find particularly ironic is that the Australian Labor Party, founded on the ideals of civil disobedience (unions et al) are now the ones who are trying to quell any dissent whatsoever.
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Re:Unenforceable, self-contradictory, and stupid
This is exactly what microsoft does - remmeber the whole Charity Controversy. To quote:
The terms of Microsoft's Original Equipment Maker (OEM) licence state that Windows cannot be transferred with a PC, making it useless. -
open publishing
featured article includes a link
to another document entitled
open publishing is the same as free software
this piece is a little bit fluffy (ok a lot), and gets some details wrong (equating free software to open source for example) but has some interesting rhetoric, vis
Media corporations assume the viewers are stupid. In their eyes the total creative potential of the audience is Funniest Home Videos. Creative people do not buy more stuff, they make their own. This is a problem for media multinationals. They do not trust their audience to be creative. It might be bad for profits, bad for executive salaries.
Open publishing means that the process of creating news is transparent to the readers. They can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the pool of stories publicly available. Those stories are filtered as little as possible to help the readers find the stories they want. Readers can see editorial decisions being made by others. They can see how to get involved and help make editorial decisions. If they can think of a better way for the software to help shape editorial decisions, they can copy the software because it is free and change it and start their own site. If they want to redistribute the news, they can, preferably on an open publishing site.
Open publishing is not new. It is an electronic reinvention of the ancient art of story telling.
and finally a reference to slashdot :Note that while slashdot.org has many open publishing features, and was an important inspiration for open publishing, I don't think it really is open publishing. Significantly, the stories (as opposed to the comments) are taken from reader contributions, but are processed behind closed doors.
not news to us
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Re:Freedom software for Windows...
As somebody else said there's http://www.gnusoftware.com. Also, in the last few weeks, I've been putting together a CD of free (as in speech) software for Windows for a volunteer project I'm involved in. You can see the contents list here.
It's be good to get a proper project together to package this sort of thing well. It's a useful fundraiser for local projects, as well as introducing Windows users to free software, and easing them into migrating to a free OS. My introduction to free software was through Perl for Win32 - as ActiveState's port was known back then. I read the GPL, thought "Wow!", and never looked back. BTW, avoid ActivePerl; the "ActiveState Community License," or whatever it's called sucks.
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Re:Freedom software for Windows...
As somebody else said there's http://www.gnusoftware.com. Also, in the last few weeks, I've been putting together a CD of free (as in speech) software for Windows for a volunteer project I'm involved in. You can see the contents list here.
It's be good to get a proper project together to package this sort of thing well. It's a useful fundraiser for local projects, as well as introducing Windows users to free software, and easing them into migrating to a free OS. My introduction to free software was through Perl for Win32 - as ActiveState's port was known back then. I read the GPL, thought "Wow!", and never looked back. BTW, avoid ActivePerl; the "ActiveState Community License," or whatever it's called sucks.
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it's been done before
here's what i found on the net here
1) "Eagle": has RG45, BNC plug and D-15 socket on it.
Main chip: advanced micro devices AM79C960KG (1992)
Card part number: 60-E2100C-2 Date: 94/08 Distrib : IPEX
EPROM is a National Semiconductor NM27C256Q (already on-board)
2) "Novell, Inc 1990"
Has a D-15 and BNC plug on it.
Main Chip: Advanced Micro Devices AM7990JC/80 (1985)
Card part Number : BD #738-000209-001 RevC Assy. #810-000209-001 RevF
Required EPROM is a 27256. I have a 27C512 off an old 486 motherboard.
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Re:Public Use in Public Facilities?
Indeed it would. I'm working on a community project in Sydney, Australia to do (among other things), just that using recycled hardware.
Couldn't resist the chance to shamelessly promote it. Anybody in Sydney, check it out. It's going to be a major, major learning curve for me, so I need all the help I can get.