Ah, there's nothing wrong with Buffalo. I have cousins there. I remember as a kid going to visit. Summer nights we'd go out and set Lake Erie on fire and roast marshmallows.
Just thinking about it gives me a warm glow inside, just like I got from those funny tasting marshmallows.
Reminds me of the time someone stole my mom's car, took it joyriding in a cornfield for a while and then pushed it off a bridge just to watch it smash up.
They caught him. He dropped his driver's license in the car. Dork.
Some people are too stupid to be dumb punks, even if they did manage to get into Union College somehow.
(As if value only meant "price." The primary value of your house is that it provides you with shelter)
You seem to have confused my point of view (in the parenthetical)with the point of view I am illustrating.
I would, however, advise you to look up your state/province/county annual financial reports. They can be quite illuminating about the thought processes of those who create them. You'll find that in them roads have cost, but only the toll roads have "value," inherent in their income to the state. A road with no tolls is treated as overhead to payed for by tax levy.
As illustration, you may leverage your home, either to acquire it or to gain liquidity, because your home has value. A price. The state can leverage tolls. They cannot leverage a road, because it has no value. Hence bond issues to pay for roads, which leverage future taxes.
And yes, there are those who believe that all roads should be toll roads.
Please note that none of this has anything to do with whether a road might be beneficial, but that is a human value judgement. Not a scientific economic one.
The subtitle of Small is Beautiful is "Economics as if People Mattered." It was written by the son of highly respected economists, himself a Rhodes Scholar in economics and over 20 years the head of planning for the British Coal Board.
If you gave a copy of it to the sort of person who "doesn't get" OSS he would almost assuredly denounce it as some sort of wooly headed liberal radical thinking with no understanding of modern economics.
Seems to me, as a technical person, I stand to benefit more from the distributed distribution of wealth OSS seems to offer, than I am from the centralized one...
No, as your link explains the average of indpendant measurements produces a more precise empirical result.
The old fashioned carpenter understands this inately. "Measure twice, cut once."
All engineering factors, such as Young's Modulus, are such averages, a fact the new fangled engineer seems to have no feel for.
Yes, the method can be used in some instances where people who have a good deal of experience in making certain kinds of measurements "guess" at something. Ask ten carpenters to mark off eight feet of a ten foot 2x4 and the average of their guesses is for more likely to be eight feet than any one of their guesses was.
This presupposes that an empirical measurment could actually be made and the people "guessing" are actually making a measurment of low precision, not actually guessing, and the precision of the average is dependant of the margin of error of that measurment. The smaller the margin, the greater the precision of the average.
In this particular case the margin of error is infinite. When you start using arbitrary factors to manipulate subjective data the results aren't simply inaccurate. ..
They're meaningless.
And thus of no interest to nerds other than to point and giggle at them.
Telling them that you'll play their game for a time and buy ten acres of woodlot and make your own food, house and clothing and never bother them again, so long as they never bother you either.
You seem to be going at me as if you think I'm a Marxist and yet I've stated, in this very thread no less, that Marx got it all wrong.
He was a small man and fairly shallow thinker and even "each according to his need" is merely a slogan he took from the French socialist movement which had already been using it for decades.
God (or whatever) willing there is no future for Marxism in this world. It is an anti human and inhumane doctrine.
I think you have forgotten the role or entrepreneurs.
No. The role of entrpreneurs is the base my ideas rest on. I are one.
If were to advocate anything (and so far please note that I have advocated nothing) it would be to become an entreprneur now, whether or not that means you can "do better," because I would argue that that state is inherently better even if you go hungry and cold now and again. I am a fairly rabid capitalist because I am a fairly rabid individualist.
As Thoreau put it, 'Mind your own business.'
There are a lot of concepts wrapped up in those four short words.
Lin and Larry Pardy are a couple who have spent the past few decades sailing around the world in a small boat. When people ask them how they might do the same their advice is always, "Go now."
Don't wait until you are "ready." You'll never be ready. If you wait until you are ready you will never leave. Sell everything that you can't take with you, gather as much of what you're going to need, don't worry about those few things you can't quite seem to afford and go. NOW!
I would advise the same for those embarking on the voyage of life. You'll never be "ready." Gather what grubstake you can and leave. You may live, you may fail. You may even die. But you'll have lived.
Though your bones have got arthritis and your bowels have got colitus You've got galloping bolloxitis and you're thinking it's time you died. Though you're lying there in traction if you've been a man of action you may gain some satisfaction thinking "Jesus, at least I tried."
-Andy Stewart: Silly Wizard
This doesn't mean that I don't hold with cooperative ventures. I would argue only the truly independant are capable of true cooperation because because they operate without the hint of coercion. Coercion is not cooperation.
I have no issues with the capitalist model adapting to OSS. I use it myself precisely because it is a better capitalist tool than the commercial alternatives. I speak only in explanation of why some people have a hard time adapting their own views of capitalism to OSS. Why they don't understand its value or why people would chose to contribute to it "for nothing."
Yet these same people would express no great dismay over the idea that someone would make pottery for fun and give the results away to their family and friends, or garden for fun and give away bushels of tomatoes and zucchini.
Because they view those essentially productive undertakings as being by consumers. Ok, so they spent money uneconomically for fun. That's what consumers do. It's necessary that they do so for economic expansion.
But crockery still held the tomatoes which eventually actually fed people.
OSS, even if only done by "hobbiests" is still productive work and may well be better software than the commercial variety, just as a lovingly cared for tomato fresh off the vine is indubitably a better tomato than the pink plastic thingamabobs available at the Safeway.
And there's nothing anti or counter capitalist about that.
Far from it. I would argue that the home tomato grower and OSS author are far more in the capitalist spirit. They own their own captial and produce from it.
The irony of the much vaunted economic expansion of the 90's was that it was built by truly impoverishing the nation. Now we are paying for the impoverishment.
Don't you have at least one friend who has said (I have a number of them myself), "Yeah, I know MS stuff is crap, but maintaining it makes me a good living."
The cognitive dissonance in that idea is staggering. It's like saying it makes good economic sense and builds wealth to pay people to around breaking windows so we can pay people to fix them.
Haven't you noticed the convergence between OS and office suite version numbers and automobile model years - 'Windows Server 2003' sounds an awful lot like '2004 Toyota Camry' to me -
This is why I started calling software "chrome" and "features" "Chrome and tailfins" years ago.
GM's Sloan wrote the book (literally) on planned obselesence.
The laws of supply and demand really don't apply to computer software precisely because it isn't a finite resource -
Which is why the industry can only be propped up by fairly egregious laws.
Upgrades. This is why commercial software companies use all sorts of tricks to force them.
Everything from new features that you either find desirable (Ooooo, shiny!) to new file formats that make your older version imcompatible with newer versions forcing you to upgrade if you wish to remain compatable with your peers.
If that doesn't work we EOL the product.
If that doesn't work, well, did you know that Windows 98 has a time bomb in it? Yep. After a certain date it will refuse to install. Your license has epxpired.
Don't fret, the new version of Windows is oh so much shinier, and available now for only $299.
XML is great. XML is good. There is no file format but XML.
But "Hello World" will occupy eight pages of text (yes, I've counted)so you'll need more memory, and bigger and faster HD and maybe an XML accelerator card (yes, there is such a thing).
Or you could just run pico under bash on a discarded 486, but you'll never see and add (or likely even much in the way of article) advising you to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
We were never silly enough to go near the river.
We were afraid it might blow up.
KFG
Ah, there's nothing wrong with Buffalo. I have cousins there. I remember as a kid going to visit. Summer nights we'd go out and set Lake Erie on fire and roast marshmallows.
Just thinking about it gives me a warm glow inside, just like I got from those funny tasting marshmallows.
KFG
Well, they do, just as we have plans for invading and nuking them. More than likely they also have plans for invading Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as well.
Possibly even Andorra. Ya never know.
It's what they do.
KFG
Reminds me of the time someone stole my mom's car, took it joyriding in a cornfield for a while and then pushed it off a bridge just to watch it smash up.
They caught him. He dropped his driver's license in the car. Dork.
Some people are too stupid to be dumb punks, even if they did manage to get into Union College somehow.
KFG
Oh sure, confuse the issue with facts.
KFG
what is the cost of a human life?
$100,000 US dollars.
KFG
(As if value only meant "price." The primary value of your house is that it provides you with shelter)
You seem to have confused my point of view (in the parenthetical)with the point of view I am illustrating.
I would, however, advise you to look up your state/province/county annual financial reports. They can be quite illuminating about the thought processes of those who create them. You'll find that in them roads have cost, but only the toll roads have "value," inherent in their income to the state. A road with no tolls is treated as overhead to payed for by tax levy.
As illustration, you may leverage your home, either to acquire it or to gain liquidity, because your home has value. A price. The state can leverage tolls. They cannot leverage a road, because it has no value. Hence bond issues to pay for roads, which leverage future taxes.
And yes, there are those who believe that all roads should be toll roads.
Please note that none of this has anything to do with whether a road might be beneficial, but that is a human value judgement. Not a scientific economic one.
The subtitle of Small is Beautiful is "Economics as if People Mattered." It was written by the son of highly respected economists, himself a Rhodes Scholar in economics and over 20 years the head of planning for the British Coal Board.
If you gave a copy of it to the sort of person who "doesn't get" OSS he would almost assuredly denounce it as some sort of wooly headed liberal radical thinking with no understanding of modern economics.
That's not my fault.
KFG
Ummm, nah. Even I'm not going to touch that one.
KFG
I don't know. I'm more comfortable with football fields per fortnight.
I like to walk and try to avoid speeding bullets wherever possible.
Perhaps this story was aimed at Krytonians?
KFG
Seems to me, as a technical person, I stand to benefit more from the distributed distribution of wealth OSS seems to offer, than I am from the centralized one...
Aha!
KFG
I'm not a Buffy fan. In fact it bores me to tears, so I had to Google on that one.
I like it.
KFG
Yeah, it seemed like fun, precisely because of your disclaimer.
Now that's just not right. You'd never, ever find me making statements just for the fun of arguing them.
Yeah, ummmmm, never.
KFG
No, as your link explains the average of indpendant measurements produces a more precise empirical result.
.
The old fashioned carpenter understands this inately. "Measure twice, cut once."
All engineering factors, such as Young's Modulus, are such averages, a fact the new fangled engineer seems to have no feel for.
Yes, the method can be used in some instances where people who have a good deal of experience in making certain kinds of measurements "guess" at something. Ask ten carpenters to mark off eight feet of a ten foot 2x4 and the average of their guesses is for more likely to be eight feet than any one of their guesses was.
This presupposes that an empirical measurment could actually be made and the people "guessing" are actually making a measurment of low precision, not actually guessing, and the precision of the average is dependant of the margin of error of that measurment. The smaller the margin, the greater the precision of the average.
In this particular case the margin of error is infinite. When you start using arbitrary factors to manipulate subjective data the results aren't simply inaccurate. .
They're meaningless.
And thus of no interest to nerds other than to point and giggle at them.
KFG
Email spam is a good example of the tragedy of the commons.
In terms of OSS I think it's certainly possible to pollute it, but it is, for the most part, self correcting over time.
The more dangerous way to skin the cat is SCO's approach of trying to pollute the entire OSS enviroment.
Thankfully, in this case, it also seems things are likely to self correct over time.
KFG
Ah, cut 'em some slack. They probably learned their methodology from the EPA.
KFG
. . . musical beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Dude,I think you're wearing your headphones wrong.
KFG
That doesn't seem to work at the CVS magazine rack.
KFG
You know what scares them even more?
Telling them that you'll play their game for a time and buy ten acres of woodlot and make your own food, house and clothing and never bother them again, so long as they never bother you either.
They will send the cops after you if you try it.
KFG
How do you distribute them?
Aha! There's the rub, eh?
You seem to be going at me as if you think I'm a Marxist and yet I've stated, in this very thread no less, that Marx got it all wrong.
He was a small man and fairly shallow thinker and even "each according to his need" is merely a slogan he took from the French socialist movement which had already been using it for decades.
God (or whatever) willing there is no future for Marxism in this world. It is an anti human and inhumane doctrine.
KFG
I think you have forgotten the role or entrepreneurs.
No. The role of entrpreneurs is the base my ideas rest on. I are one.
If were to advocate anything (and so far please note that I have advocated nothing) it would be to become an entreprneur now, whether or not that means you can "do better," because I would argue that that state is inherently better even if you go hungry and cold now and again. I am a fairly rabid capitalist because I am a fairly rabid individualist.
As Thoreau put it, 'Mind your own business.'
There are a lot of concepts wrapped up in those four short words.
Lin and Larry Pardy are a couple who have spent the past few decades sailing around the world in a small boat. When people ask them how they might do the same their advice is always, "Go now."
Don't wait until you are "ready." You'll never be ready. If you wait until you are ready you will never leave. Sell everything that you can't take with you, gather as much of what you're going to need, don't worry about those few things you can't quite seem to afford and go. NOW!
I would advise the same for those embarking on the voyage of life. You'll never be "ready." Gather what grubstake you can and leave. You may live, you may fail. You may even die. But you'll have lived.
Though your bones have got arthritis
and your bowels have got colitus
You've got galloping bolloxitis
and you're thinking it's time you died.
Though you're lying there in traction
if you've been a man of action
you may gain some satisfaction thinking
"Jesus, at least I tried."
-Andy Stewart: Silly Wizard
This doesn't mean that I don't hold with cooperative ventures. I would argue only the truly independant are capable of true cooperation because because they operate without the hint of coercion. Coercion is not cooperation.
I have no issues with the capitalist model adapting to OSS. I use it myself precisely because it is a better capitalist tool than the commercial alternatives. I speak only in explanation of why some people have a hard time adapting their own views of capitalism to OSS. Why they don't understand its value or why people would chose to contribute to it "for nothing."
Yet these same people would express no great dismay over the idea that someone would make pottery for fun and give the results away to their family and friends, or garden for fun and give away bushels of tomatoes and zucchini.
Because they view those essentially productive undertakings as being by consumers. Ok, so they spent money uneconomically for fun. That's what consumers do. It's necessary that they do so for economic expansion.
But crockery still held the tomatoes which eventually actually fed people.
OSS, even if only done by "hobbiests" is still productive work and may well be better software than the commercial variety, just as a lovingly cared for tomato fresh off the vine is indubitably a better tomato than the pink plastic thingamabobs available at the Safeway.
And there's nothing anti or counter capitalist about that.
Far from it. I would argue that the home tomato grower and OSS author are far more in the capitalist spirit. They own their own captial and produce from it.
KFG
I'm sure if I read further in this thread, I'll see where the workers should seize capital.
What a daft idea. Why should they sieze what the vast majority of them already possess?
KFG
Economics is solely about distribution of scarce resources.
What's the problem? Simply distribute them.
KFG
The irony of the much vaunted economic expansion of the 90's was that it was built by truly impoverishing the nation. Now we are paying for the impoverishment.
Don't you have at least one friend who has said (I have a number of them myself), "Yeah, I know MS stuff is crap, but maintaining it makes me a good living."
The cognitive dissonance in that idea is staggering. It's like saying it makes good economic sense and builds wealth to pay people to around breaking windows so we can pay people to fix them.
The sad part is, in the short term it works.
KFG
Haven't you noticed the convergence between OS and office suite version numbers and automobile model years - 'Windows Server 2003' sounds an awful lot like '2004 Toyota Camry' to me -
This is why I started calling software "chrome" and "features" "Chrome and tailfins" years ago.
GM's Sloan wrote the book (literally) on planned obselesence.
The laws of supply and demand really don't apply to computer software precisely because it isn't a finite resource -
Which is why the industry can only be propped up by fairly egregious laws.
KFG
Upgrades. This is why commercial software companies use all sorts of tricks to force them.
Everything from new features that you either find desirable (Ooooo, shiny!) to new file formats that make your older version imcompatible with newer versions forcing you to upgrade if you wish to remain compatable with your peers.
If that doesn't work we EOL the product.
If that doesn't work, well, did you know that Windows 98 has a time bomb in it? Yep. After a certain date it will refuse to install. Your license has epxpired.
Don't fret, the new version of Windows is oh so much shinier, and available now for only $299.
XML is great. XML is good. There is no file format but XML.
But "Hello World" will occupy eight pages of text (yes, I've counted)so you'll need more memory, and bigger and faster HD and maybe an XML accelerator card (yes, there is such a thing).
Or you could just run pico under bash on a discarded 486, but you'll never see and add (or likely even much in the way of article) advising you to do so.
That's nonconsumptive computer usage.
And uneconomic.
KFG