Yes, I was actually waiting for someone to bring that up.:)
Air and water have been productized because the free stuff has been polluted by industry. Clean air and clean water are becoming rare and thus can now be sold.
Which creates jobs, increases profits, stimulates the economy and raises the GNP.
From the standpoint of the economic calculus polluting is a win/win situation. This is why there is so much opposition to pollution controls. It isn't just the cost of implimenting them.
When you pollute a resource that's necessary for survival you save overhead, but you also create a new product that can be monitized, the non polluted version of the resource, which, being necessary for survival, makes the entire human race a slave to market.
By the economic calculus it's not only good sense to pollute to reduce overhead ( and thus maximize profits), it's necessary for our continued survival as a race to lay waste to the enviroment we are dependant upon for that very survival.
No, economics is solely about monetary value. The economic calculus has no method of dealing with anything that doesn't have a price. Economics has been transformed into what its practioners believe is a science and as such it only admits to mathmatical models.
Quantity, which in this case means price.
That's the problem.
Nowe you and I know that's daft. The value of sharing a beautiful sunset with your sweety is of inestimable value, but no price. Economics cannot even consider it.
Until DeBeers, Hershey and Monsanto (rose propagation) are able to monitize it.
That's why they keep having to invent all these daft new "holidays." It monitizes society, our social interactions with other people.
And once that is done, then they can treat love as a commodity to which the economic calculus can be applied and those results taken as scientific proof of the conclusions.
And then the government makes legal policy about your love based on these conclusions.
Love, wisdom, judgment, these aren't scientific. They are not allowed and have been banned from the practice of economics.
Yes, it is an axiom of modern economic theory that expansion is necessary. For survival. Not just economically but literally. This, taken to its logical extreme means that we must expand infinately (an obvious impossibility in a finite world, therefore to survive we must go where human survival itself is impossible, like the moon. The metaphysical implications of this are staggering), or die.
Do not, however, fall into the trap of believing that modern economic theories are all there is to capitalism. At root capitalism simply means owning your own means of production, that you take care of yourself and make your own profit without being endentured to man or state just to be "allowed" to live.
The modern man, due to certain political vagaries of the past century, tends to think of capitalism in opposition to communism.
It isn't really. Communism can exist perfectly well along side, and even inside, capitalist structures (The American Nuclear family is a socialist oligarchy and one of the things that strikes us immoral about modern invented religions is that they operate on a capitalist basis).
No, capitalism is opposed to fuedalism. To the extent that capitalism is opposed to modern communism it is because modern communisms have actually been built on a fuedal model.
Which it got, ironically, from capitalism. Marx's great error was not an economic one, but a political one. His philosophy was a modern industrial philosopy based entirely on capitalist concepts of production and consumption. He didn't free the workers. He made them slaves of the state.
As modern Western industrialism enslaves the worker to the corporation's fuedal society.
If you are a slave who you are enslaved to is of little mind. One master may treat you better than another, but you are still beholden to the master.
And capitalsim no longer puts a price on freedom (as it did literally in the slave trade), and has thus reduced it to a thing of no "value." What our ancestors were willing to die rather than give up we now give away as worthless.
The ultimate work of literature on this theme has to be Thoreau's "Life Without Principle" (original title "What Shall it Profit". Both titles are economic puns).
You can find it on the web here:
http://eserver.org/thoreau/lifewout.html
But be careful, it's available for free, which means that it has no value. I wouldn't pay it much mind if I were you. Better to buy a tract from the Scientologists. That is fully protected by copyright and only available at a price, good capitalist practice, and thus is obviously of superiour value.
It's simple economics. Everything must be assigned a price and the purpose of production and distribution is profit.
Anything that reduces profits is, by definition bad. Anything that reduces profits reduces the GNP which is, by definition, a social evil.
If a thing has no price it has no value. Replacing things that have a price with things that don't reduces riches. The more of these things you have the less you are "worth." (As if value only meant "price." The primary value of your house is that it provides you with shelter)
From the standpoint of economics free software is just looney. That would be like cars just being free for the taking, like leaves on the ground in the fall. Everyone would be poor if they just get what they wanted like that.
Wealth means buying shoddy things with a high "value." Less stiches, more riches.
Of course things that are "free" can be used as well. Since the river next to your plant has no price it's fine to use it to dump toxic waste into. Clean water and air have no value because you don't have to buy them. They're just there until you pollute them.
Now businesses that aren't directly tied to the ideas of the software industry as part of the their own profit or adding to the value of the GNP are now starting to realize that OSS is like that stream next to the factory now. You can just use it. For free. (And maybe pollute it, but that'a another post).
But if you're in the software industry or an economist the idea of reducing an item that can be produced for free and "sold" (over and over again to the same customer) at usurius profit margins to free as in leaves on the ground is just daft. It can be literally unthinkable.
Of course from the "consumer's" point of view software is truly a consumable. You buy it. You use it. But you don't have anything of your own for it. Your "worth" is reduced. Then you have to buy it again. The flow of "value" is all one way.
But from the economic point of view that's a good thing. There is a schizophrenic rift in economic theory between man the consumer and man the producer.
Everyone's heard about it, but no one these days has read it. Pick up a copy of E.F. Schumacher's classic work "Small is Beautiful." It delves into these very issues.
Finding a copy of Stephen Leacock's (professor of economics at McGill) "Too Much College" wouldn't hurt either.
Even the autobiography of G.K. Chesterton has some interesting things to say about the issue, just ignore the religious stuff if you are so inclined.
In all of 2003 I didn't search for a single term on the Yahoo! lists.
The Google list is a bit more interesting. I searched for Roland Garros. You know, the flying pioneer and WWI fighter pilot? (Hey, Google, the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament doesn't take place in Paris. Why do you think they call it Wimbledon? Jeez.)
I searched on Winnie the Pooh, but added a +latin. Interesting stuff there on the history of the translation. Very interesting.
I'm searching for a way to avoid any reference to Britney Spears. If you've found a method short of hanging myself let me know.
Last I researched it it appeared to have been coined by Deep Throat during the Watergate scandal and means something rather more than "hard evidence." Fingerprints at the scene are hard evidence. If you have a smoking gun you don't need no stinking fingerprints.
Yes, shots really do ring out.
"Harm's way is actually in the dictionary."
Embedded journalist may be a new term but a concept that goes back at least until WWII. It has real and important meaning which is not "at the scene." It may be overused now, seeing as how there are so few embedded journalists in Iraq, but I actually hope the term lasts.
I reserve judgement on lol. I use it, but not often. Yes, when I've actually laughed out loud. Even though I may vote for not getting rid of this one there's no denying that many of the people who use, and abuse, it might be better off done away with.
I'll go along with the rest without much fuss though.
Pet actually means companion animal. Give the PC shit a rest already.
What's wrong with "dandy" or "narcissist"?
X the "X" shit already. Even "Extreme" everything was bugging the hell out of me. It's this decade's "Turbo."
What's with the Iraq War's code names all being about the level of an old Sgt. Rock comic book? Remember him, going out to get the gooks, charging out of a foxhole while pulling the grenade pin with his teeth? George, grow up already.
And trust me. You ain't no Sgt. Rock. No way Jose.
Indeed, just as the New Deal introduced mandatory schooling and mandatory retirement ages not, principly, out of any ideas of children's rights or the rights of the elderly, but as a way of reducing unemployment and keeping wages high by artificially reducing the number of people who could be legally employed.
Many trade licenses fulfill the same function, such as that needed to be a plumber or electrician, where licensing is typically handled not by the state but directly through the unions.
This proposal bears the strong stink of such domestic trade protectionism.
As a good Christian, I will turn the other cheek, and not call for the punishment of those responsible. But to the heinous criminals and negligents responsible for this, I must ask, how do you feel about destroying a small girl's sense of innocence and wonder about the world? About crushing her childish dreams and idealism? About shattering her faith in God and his benevolence? About possibly having crushed her soul and emotion forever, leaving her to live the rest of her days in spiritual agony as a broken, scarred husk of a person?
Yeah. Really. I mean, if God had wanted random strangers on the internet to have this sort of effect on impressionable young girls he wouldn't have invented first boyfriends.
When I really need a program I'll turn to Python or C, but 99% of the time when I just need to get something done grep, find and a knowledge of regular expressions does the trick.
Throwing in a bit of sed handles most of the rest.
The power inherent in these simple tools is really quite amazing and knowing how to use them means I've never had to upgrade from my 486 laptop.
The only real downside is a need for at least a practical understanding of formal logic and set theory and some people are agin that.
Thailand is a poor country where Windows piracy is rampant and Linux is a valid alternative just on the basis of cost and licensing issues alone.
MS is also tailoring a version of Windows for Thailand alone and making noises about being willing to this for other Asian markets as well, which are huge.
Isreal is a rich developed country where cost and licensing issues are the same as for any other developed nation. To be considered but not necessarily overiding issues.
However, the market is small and MS is refusing to tailor a product for them even under threat of being declared an illegal monopoly. The required tailoring (supporting the local language for God's sake)has, in this case, rather marked cultural and religious overtones. It's a serious issue embeded in local law.
No, I can't see this as a bargaining chip for lower prices.
It's a direct assualt on MS culture, and frankly I think it's about time someone stood up and said, "Look, we're a frickin' country. It is our culture and we make the laws. You are just a business and as subject to those laws as anyone else. Deal, or get the fuck out and we'll keep our own money here. Thank you very much."
Overheated NiCads are far more impressive. Gas and acid start shooting out of the vent hole under high pressure, turning them into a rocket if they are sitting loose.
Did ya know that people will scatter like crazy when that happens? They jump up on the banquet tables and everything. Quite a sight.
Boy, what a party pooper. That was the problem with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"Don't Panic."
Come on. Adventure is 90% boredom and 10% sheer terror. If you take the panic out of travel all you're left with is the boredom. You might just as well stay home and watch golf on TV where at least you get to sit in your own comfy chair.
Now this story is like bungee jumping. Why is bungee jumping so popular? Because, like Roller Coasters, you get to experience that sheer terror under conditions that actually entail no more risk than your commute to work. Maybe less.
But you get to tell people about it as if the risk were real:
"Yeah, it was scary, I jumped off a cliff."
Far more impressive than:
"I took my life in my hands today. It was awful. I drove to work. I could have died."
So let people have their fun, get a little adreneline pumping, run around, scream, wave their hands in the air and so on. It's all in good fun and they'll get to tell their grandkids all about how they survived the great XFree scare at the dawn of 2004 in the new millenia.
It's not like their grandkids will take them seriously anyway.
Well, I may be biased by the fact that I'm sitting virtually within sight of the original Edison-Mazda company buildings, but I really do think you're exagerating a bit.
The lightbulb and the electrical grid were transformative. The world was literally different after their introduction.
I can't really say there's a damned thing transformatively different about my life now as opposed to my life in 1968, and neither can most other people, which is perhaps why those names are not generally known amongst the general populace.
I'll give you the telephone and rail transport. On the whole these things didn't really effect people in a transformative way either. They just made things we already did a bit faster, cheaper and easier. Pace of life increasers, rather than life changers.
Electric lights and the power grid changed everything. Everything. Everywhere.
And that was the second draft. The first was on a coffee stained Denny's placemat.
Honestly, we really worked like that back in the day. When Freeman Dyson cleaned out Feynman's office the only physics notes he found were on a stack of cocktail doilies.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I was actually waiting for someone to bring that up. :)
Air and water have been productized because the free stuff has been polluted by industry. Clean air and clean water are becoming rare and thus can now be sold.
Which creates jobs, increases profits, stimulates the economy and raises the GNP.
From the standpoint of the economic calculus polluting is a win/win situation. This is why there is so much opposition to pollution controls. It isn't just the cost of implimenting them.
When you pollute a resource that's necessary for survival you save overhead, but you also create a new product that can be monitized, the non polluted version of the resource, which, being necessary for survival, makes the entire human race a slave to market.
By the economic calculus it's not only good sense to pollute to reduce overhead ( and thus maximize profits), it's necessary for our continued survival as a race to lay waste to the enviroment we are dependant upon for that very survival.
Because it's most economic.
KFG
No, economics is solely about monetary value. The economic calculus has no method of dealing with anything that doesn't have a price. Economics has been transformed into what its practioners believe is a science and as such it only admits to mathmatical models.
Quantity, which in this case means price.
That's the problem.
Nowe you and I know that's daft. The value of sharing a beautiful sunset with your sweety is of inestimable value, but no price. Economics cannot even consider it.
Until DeBeers, Hershey and Monsanto (rose propagation) are able to monitize it.
That's why they keep having to invent all these daft new "holidays." It monitizes society, our social interactions with other people.
And once that is done, then they can treat love as a commodity to which the economic calculus can be applied and those results taken as scientific proof of the conclusions.
And then the government makes legal policy about your love based on these conclusions.
Love, wisdom, judgment, these aren't scientific. They are not allowed and have been banned from the practice of economics.
Only price remains.
KFG
Yes, it is an axiom of modern economic theory that expansion is necessary. For survival. Not just economically but literally. This, taken to its logical extreme means that we must expand infinately (an obvious impossibility in a finite world, therefore to survive we must go where human survival itself is impossible, like the moon. The metaphysical implications of this are staggering), or die.
Do not, however, fall into the trap of believing that modern economic theories are all there is to capitalism. At root capitalism simply means owning your own means of production, that you take care of yourself and make your own profit without being endentured to man or state just to be "allowed" to live.
The modern man, due to certain political vagaries of the past century, tends to think of capitalism in opposition to communism.
It isn't really. Communism can exist perfectly well along side, and even inside, capitalist structures (The American Nuclear family is a socialist oligarchy and one of the things that strikes us immoral about modern invented religions is that they operate on a capitalist basis).
No, capitalism is opposed to fuedalism. To the extent that capitalism is opposed to modern communism it is because modern communisms have actually been built on a fuedal model.
Which it got, ironically, from capitalism. Marx's great error was not an economic one, but a political one. His philosophy was a modern industrial philosopy based entirely on capitalist concepts of production and consumption. He didn't free the workers. He made them slaves of the state.
As modern Western industrialism enslaves the worker to the corporation's fuedal society.
If you are a slave who you are enslaved to is of little mind. One master may treat you better than another, but you are still beholden to the master.
And capitalsim no longer puts a price on freedom (as it did literally in the slave trade), and has thus reduced it to a thing of no "value." What our ancestors were willing to die rather than give up we now give away as worthless.
The ultimate work of literature on this theme has to be Thoreau's "Life Without Principle" (original title "What Shall it Profit". Both titles are economic puns).
You can find it on the web here:
http://eserver.org/thoreau/lifewout.html
But be careful, it's available for free, which means that it has no value. I wouldn't pay it much mind if I were you. Better to buy a tract from the Scientologists. That is fully protected by copyright and only available at a price, good capitalist practice, and thus is obviously of superiour value.
KFG
It's simple economics. Everything must be assigned a price and the purpose of production and distribution is profit.
Anything that reduces profits is, by definition bad. Anything that reduces profits reduces the GNP which is, by definition, a social evil.
If a thing has no price it has no value. Replacing things that have a price with things that don't reduces riches. The more of these things you have the less you are "worth." (As if value only meant "price." The primary value of your house is that it provides you with shelter)
From the standpoint of economics free software is just looney. That would be like cars just being free for the taking, like leaves on the ground in the fall. Everyone would be poor if they just get what they wanted like that.
Wealth means buying shoddy things with a high "value." Less stiches, more riches.
Of course things that are "free" can be used as well. Since the river next to your plant has no price it's fine to use it to dump toxic waste into. Clean water and air have no value because you don't have to buy them. They're just there until you pollute them.
Now businesses that aren't directly tied to the ideas of the software industry as part of the their own profit or adding to the value of the GNP are now starting to realize that OSS is like that stream next to the factory now. You can just use it. For free. (And maybe pollute it, but that'a another post).
But if you're in the software industry or an economist the idea of reducing an item that can be produced for free and "sold" (over and over again to the same customer) at usurius profit margins to free as in leaves on the ground is just daft. It can be literally unthinkable.
Of course from the "consumer's" point of view software is truly a consumable. You buy it. You use it. But you don't have anything of your own for it. Your "worth" is reduced. Then you have to buy it again. The flow of "value" is all one way.
But from the economic point of view that's a good thing. There is a schizophrenic rift in economic theory between man the consumer and man the producer.
Everyone's heard about it, but no one these days has read it. Pick up a copy of E.F. Schumacher's classic work "Small is Beautiful." It delves into these very issues.
Finding a copy of Stephen Leacock's (professor of economics at McGill) "Too Much College" wouldn't hurt either.
Even the autobiography of G.K. Chesterton has some interesting things to say about the issue, just ignore the religious stuff if you are so inclined.
KFG
In all of 2003 I didn't search for a single term on the Yahoo! lists.
The Google list is a bit more interesting. I searched for Roland Garros. You know, the flying pioneer and WWI fighter pilot? (Hey, Google, the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament doesn't take place in Paris. Why do you think they call it Wimbledon? Jeez.)
I searched on Winnie the Pooh, but added a +latin. Interesting stuff there on the history of the translation. Very interesting.
I'm searching for a way to avoid any reference to Britney Spears. If you've found a method short of hanging myself let me know.
KFG
Last I researched it it appeared to have been coined by Deep Throat during the Watergate scandal and means something rather more than "hard evidence." Fingerprints at the scene are hard evidence. If you have a smoking gun you don't need no stinking fingerprints.
Yes, shots really do ring out.
"Harm's way is actually in the dictionary."
Embedded journalist may be a new term but a concept that goes back at least until WWII. It has real and important meaning which is not "at the scene." It may be overused now, seeing as how there are so few embedded journalists in Iraq, but I actually hope the term lasts.
I reserve judgement on lol. I use it, but not often. Yes, when I've actually laughed out loud. Even though I may vote for not getting rid of this one there's no denying that many of the people who use, and abuse, it might be better off done away with.
I'll go along with the rest without much fuss though.
Pet actually means companion animal. Give the PC shit a rest already.
What's wrong with "dandy" or "narcissist"?
X the "X" shit already. Even "Extreme" everything was bugging the hell out of me. It's this decade's "Turbo."
What's with the Iraq War's code names all being about the level of an old Sgt. Rock comic book? Remember him, going out to get the gooks, charging out of a foxhole while pulling the grenade pin with his teeth? George, grow up already.
And trust me. You ain't no Sgt. Rock. No way Jose.
KFG
I never intended to imply that, I certainly didn't think it. Only that such simple scripts do most of my work.
As they will for most people who turn to languages other than shell when there is no need.
KFG
Indeed, just as the New Deal introduced mandatory schooling and mandatory retirement ages not, principly, out of any ideas of children's rights or the rights of the elderly, but as a way of reducing unemployment and keeping wages high by artificially reducing the number of people who could be legally employed.
Many trade licenses fulfill the same function, such as that needed to be a plumber or electrician, where licensing is typically handled not by the state but directly through the unions.
This proposal bears the strong stink of such domestic trade protectionism.
KFG
Yes, my wording there was chosen carefully and quite deliberately.
KFG
Download security and virus patches at Microsoft.com/protect.
/bin or /usr/bin?
Ok. I did that. Now do I stick 'em in
KFG
As a good Christian, I will turn the other cheek, and not call for the punishment of those responsible. But to the heinous criminals and negligents responsible for this, I must ask, how do you feel about destroying a small girl's sense of innocence and wonder about the world? About crushing her childish dreams and idealism? About shattering her faith in God and his benevolence? About possibly having crushed her soul and emotion forever, leaving her to live the rest of her days in spiritual agony as a broken, scarred husk of a person?
Yeah. Really. I mean, if God had wanted random strangers on the internet to have this sort of effect on impressionable young girls he wouldn't have invented first boyfriends.
Or priests for the boys.
KFG
That's not unreasonable for 1-2 years.
Well yes, actually, it is.
But sometimes there's nothing you can do about it.
KFG
When I really need a program I'll turn to Python or C, but 99% of the time when I just need to get something done grep, find and a knowledge of regular expressions does the trick.
Throwing in a bit of sed handles most of the rest.
The power inherent in these simple tools is really quite amazing and knowing how to use them means I've never had to upgrade from my 486 laptop.
The only real downside is a need for at least a practical understanding of formal logic and set theory and some people are agin that.
Takes all kinds I guess.
KFG
Thailand is a poor country where Windows piracy is rampant and Linux is a valid alternative just on the basis of cost and licensing issues alone.
MS is also tailoring a version of Windows for Thailand alone and making noises about being willing to this for other Asian markets as well, which are huge.
Isreal is a rich developed country where cost and licensing issues are the same as for any other developed nation. To be considered but not necessarily overiding issues.
However, the market is small and MS is refusing to tailor a product for them even under threat of being declared an illegal monopoly. The required tailoring (supporting the local language for God's sake)has, in this case, rather marked cultural and religious overtones. It's a serious issue embeded in local law.
No, I can't see this as a bargaining chip for lower prices.
It's a direct assualt on MS culture, and frankly I think it's about time someone stood up and said, "Look, we're a frickin' country. It is our culture and we make the laws. You are just a business and as subject to those laws as anyone else. Deal, or get the fuck out and we'll keep our own money here. Thank you very much."
KFG
KFG
I'm curious as to what way stocking shelves makes the drive to work more danerous than if you sell the stock.
Having done both I still fail to see the correlation.
I've avoided being President of Pakistan, however. Allah be praised.
KFG
Overheated NiCads are far more impressive. Gas and acid start shooting out of the vent hole under high pressure, turning them into a rocket if they are sitting loose.
Did ya know that people will scatter like crazy when that happens? They jump up on the banquet tables and everything. Quite a sight.
KFG
I think you are a bit uneducated, there are only two senators per state. Arkansas is no exception!!
Oh yeah? Tell that to Bobby Kennedy. There is a long tradition among those of higher political asperations of "borrowing" a senatorial seat from NY.
KFG
I negelected specifically state I presumed standard conditions, yes.
Honda Accord/Toyota Corolla, keeping to the speed limit and following generally accepted practices for defensive driving.
The issue of what work is is not relevant, however. The methodolgy isolates the commute from the work.
Certainly under other conditions other results may be expected and if a shudder passes through the crowd when someone says:
"I rode in with KFG today. I could have died."
Well, so I gave them a little adventure in their dreary lives. Sue me.
KFG
I wouldn't panic yet.
Boy, what a party pooper. That was the problem with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"Don't Panic."
Come on. Adventure is 90% boredom and 10% sheer terror. If you take the panic out of travel all you're left with is the boredom. You might just as well stay home and watch golf on TV where at least you get to sit in your own comfy chair.
Now this story is like bungee jumping. Why is bungee jumping so popular? Because, like Roller Coasters, you get to experience that sheer terror under conditions that actually entail no more risk than your commute to work. Maybe less.
But you get to tell people about it as if the risk were real:
"Yeah, it was scary, I jumped off a cliff."
Far more impressive than:
"I took my life in my hands today. It was awful. I drove to work. I could have died."
So let people have their fun, get a little adreneline pumping, run around, scream, wave their hands in the air and so on. It's all in good fun and they'll get to tell their grandkids all about how they survived the great XFree scare at the dawn of 2004 in the new millenia.
It's not like their grandkids will take them seriously anyway.
KFG
Oh yeah? Well, if she's so unintelligible how did she manage to make Arkansas the only state with three senators?
KFG
Well, I may be biased by the fact that I'm sitting virtually within sight of the original Edison-Mazda company buildings, but I really do think you're exagerating a bit.
The lightbulb and the electrical grid were transformative. The world was literally different after their introduction.
I can't really say there's a damned thing transformatively different about my life now as opposed to my life in 1968, and neither can most other people, which is perhaps why those names are not generally known amongst the general populace.
I'll give you the telephone and rail transport. On the whole these things didn't really effect people in a transformative way either. They just made things we already did a bit faster, cheaper and easier. Pace of life increasers, rather than life changers.
Electric lights and the power grid changed everything. Everything. Everywhere.
KFG
And that was the second draft. The first was on a coffee stained Denny's placemat.
Honestly, we really worked like that back in the day. When Freeman Dyson cleaned out Feynman's office the only physics notes he found were on a stack of cocktail doilies.
KFG
Thank you so much, Direct Marketers of America and Congressman Tauzin!
And don't forget the religous nut jobs and "charities" who now have Congressional imprimatur to spam your soul to hell.
KFG
. . .is like someone for death-penalties to win the Nobel Peace Prize. . .
Yasser Arafat, 1994, so it would seem anything is possible.
KFG
Could you rephrase?
Certainly. It clearly lost something in the translation.
Pecunia non olet. Carthago delenda est!
KFG