Coincidentally, last night I watched a History Channel DVD about the race to the moon. On Apollo 11, the first moon landing, we almost failed *three times* just before landing.
The first time, the onboard computer became overloaded. A 25-year-old engineer at capcom had to make the go/no-go decision.
Then, the lunar module was coming down much too quickly; luckily, it was still an "acceptable" level.
Then, because they came down too fast, they overshot the landing spot. They only had three minutes of fuel to find a new landing spot as they hurtled over a surface filled with house-sized boulders. The Eagle finally landed with 15 seconds of fuel left.
At least three incidents that could just as easily have turned into failure and/or tragedy. Could we stomach that today?
The center of the image matches the center of the map. But the image is seriously squashed, at least at my latitude (Seattle). Compare the streets at the top of the map to the streets at the top of the image.
You will really notice the squashing if you compare the image in Google Maps to the image you get in Keyhole.
"Does this remind anyone of Farenheit 451? You know, where they burn the books so people won't revolt against the government? "
As I recall, the government didn't burn books because they were revolutionary. They burned books that people found offensive. They started with obvious things like neo-nazi and racist tracts, then concluded that almost anything could offend someone, so essentially all books became illegal. "Farenheit 451" was a novel about so-called "political correctness" (though the term was not used back then).
"Everyone's saying this movie is set in Victorian England. Queen Victoria ruled until 1901. That car, and the WWII-style German helmets, don't look "Victorian" to me."
I can't see details of this trailer too well on this machine, but... I suspect the car will turn out to run on steam. There are some terrific steampunk vistas in the original comic. It is, after all, an imaginary variation on Victorian England.
The helmets do seem to evoke the Third Reich. However, they also evoke elements that go back to armor of the Ancient Greeks. And Weird Harold, from "Fat Albert".
"It's up to the professor to exploit the tools the kids have. For example, what if the professor says "Can somebody do a quick Google search to see what the consequences of the US joining the second world war later would have been?". Admitted, it's a contrived example, "
I'll cut you slack because it was an example pulled out of your hat. But it really would be a terrible use of a computer in the classroom. Your professor is asking for not just a simple, noncontroversial "fact", but rather a historical judgement.
Even if you could come up with a decent Google query and find a good matching page within a minute or two (before the class moves on), you don't have time to read and assess the argument. All you can do is parrot what you've found. This is a good question for an essay, written with careful consideration, but not good for a quick in-class lookup.
Also, this is a good example of one of the biggest dangers of Googling, particularly for students. I'll call it the Law of Distorted Significance, though someone else may have described this otherwise. In a database of content and metacontent (e.g., Google) which is sufficiently large and diverse (created by millions of people around the world), you will find nearly *anything*. That much is shown by the difficulty of googlewhacking. The danger is that you can conclude that what you've found has real significance.
Old review at: http://www.webreview.com/1997/04_04/strategis ts/04 _04_97_2.shtml
For info on more navigation tools and techniques from this ancient era, check out this paper from the WWW6 conference: http://www.scope.gmd.de/info/www6/pos ters/710/hg.h tml
I've read 1984... The central thesis of 1984 was that people will abuse the power they have. Once technology was developed to monitor your thoughts, thoughts would be monitored and any thought that might detract loyalty from the government would be outlawed.
Are you _sure_ you read the book?:-) The government did _not_ develop technology to read thoughts. They had cameras and spies everywhere, but they could not read Winston's mind. It was only when he took actual action, be beginning an affair with Julia, that the government got him.
(That's what puts so much power in the book, for me; that for all Winston knew, maybe 90% of the population was having the same thoughts as him. But because everyone protected himself by acting as a state snitch, the result was the same as if everyone were a true believer.)
"I believe this is a good thing for developers and companies to do of their own free will. I do not, however, think that it is right for our government to exclude proprietary software developers from public works."
Shouldn't the primary test be "how well does this benefit *citizens* who are paying for the development?" Your test examines only minor, secondary benefits (to developers). And your logic can be extended easily into: "our government shouldn't exclude from public works those developers who also want us to pass a 500-year patent and copyight extension in the same appropriations bill as this development contract." Sure, someone wants that, just as someone wants a government monopoly (patent/copyright) handed to them in their contract, along with the cash. But if the govt wants to offer only cash for the work, that's the offer. Microsoft could do the contract and make money. They just couldn't make the continuing rents they're used to making (and that most Fortune 500s are extremely jealous of). That's not discriminatory at all, it's just the terms offered.
"' The analog here is Republican Rome; an Emperor would appoint a Dictator (Speaker) who would wield absolute power during times of war, then hand control back to the civilian gov't when the crisis was past."
Well, the first problem with this description is that when Rome was a Republic, there was no Emperor. That, in fact, is why it was called a Republic.
Space elevator CONFERENCE in Seattle today!
on
Going Up?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Highlift Systems is sponsoring a two-day conference (Space Elevator Conference 2002) at the Seattle Sheraton, ending today. See http://www.confcon.com/sp_elev_02/sp_elev_02.html . I Googled to get the location details, here.
And yes, ny the way, they had a dinner last night at the Space Needle:-)
>> It proves that in an unregulated market, >> monopolists can emerge that can't be dislodged >> by any competing firm. > > The problem is that our market is hardly > "unregulated".
All right, let me restate my point: in a market where ownership of standards can create network effects (e.g., videotape formats, or OS's), failure to enforce existing antitrust regulations can allow a monopolist to gain such power that no other profit-seeking competitor can threaten it.
"Economics is not about monetary profits and prices. One recent example that most geeks should relate to: The movie "A Beautiful Mind" showed John Nash receiving the nobel prize. In the movie he discovered the key to this theory while analyzing how guys pick up chicks. It was a funny scene, but it was pure economics. And no market prices or monetary profits anywhere to be seen."
That was an example of Game Theory, not Economics. (One difference being that Game Theory creates a tiny, artificial world, with heavy constraints and no currency that can be used to exchange different forms of value in spheres outside that world. In the Prisoner's Dilemma, you're not 'allowed' to create a third alternative, like making a prison break.)
Of course, there is the problem that economists don't even agree on what falls in their field, because to do so illustrates the overreaching and unscientific claims upon which it is built. For example, I recently checked out 10 different Econ 101 textbooks. Half of them gave vague definitions, and the other half said quite plainly that "we're not going to define economics; it's easier to just look at the subjects covered in this book."
The main question here is "can conventional economic theory explain the free software movement?" Now look again at "A Beautiful Mind". The "conventional theory" about getting girls was the "survival of the fittest" contest, as one character put it; everyone goes for the prettiest girl. That is HOW all characters except Nash actually acted! That theory described actual behavior very well; it's just that Nash's theory suggested a more optimal global solution. Similarly, people creating free software are motivated by their own, non-market theory of what they should do. Unlike companies, they were not making market calculations.
An economist would now say, "watch what people do, not what they say." Meaning that although people don't think they're motivated by market values, they are. Or rather, it's still possible to view them that way, and gives economists a chance to bend the model to encompass them. But in a sphere without scarcity (digital data), and with $0 prices, how can market theory improve the "efficiency' of free software? You already have an answer to the question of people's motivations, and without a scarcity problem or a fungible value system, economists have little to offer here except distortion of motives.
"Free software has value, even though its free. To claim that the free market is only about pricing things in terms of CASH is false. Pricing includes value, and everything that goes into a transaction-- labor, for instance. By your theory, every worker is getting a free ride because they put no money in and get money out."
A basic proposition of Economics is that everything of value is convertible into cash. If I want to take time off from work and go to the beach, there is an implied calculation I make about the dollar value (as lost income) to me of that day at the beach.
That's still a very kludgy theory, because research shows people don't really make decisions that way. And when you get into free software, standard theory becomes almost impossible. Without pricing signals from either buyers or sellers, you cannot make economic statements or predictions. In fact, you might asymptotic behavior at $0. How much money will it take to get Linus to stop work on Linux? Possibly an infinite amount. Because what he values is *not* fungible to cash.
"Open source is the definition of Market Economics. It does not need its own theory-"
It might be *possible* to describe the Open Source movement in terms of standard market forces, but it is not parsimonious.
I wonder whether you've read Benkler's paper. It's long, and as he says, he spends "substantial space in this article explaining why peer-production processes appear to respond mostly to cues other than price signals." *That* is clearly one aspect that removes this from the realm of market forces. If you want to argue tautologies about how people always do what's in their best interests, etc., go ahead. But you're not describing standard market economic models unless actions are motivated by profits and regulated by prices. Free-as-in-beer software may be used by some companies to save money, but that's not why most programmers create it.
"[T]he emergence of the open source movement proves that free markets work-- whenever one company gets to monopolistic, under free market theory, competitors emerge. Lots of competitors have emerged to Microsoft, but Open Source is the first one to really sustain a battle and change the terms of the war."
Are you serious? This proves the opposite. It proves that in an unregulated market, monopolists can emerge that can't be dislodged by any competing firm. Only people who are not motivated by profits have a chance, and only by creating a product that has zero marginal costs (digital data) and zero price. Those assumptions overturn all of the first chapter of Econ 101.
Market forces do not explain all aspects of human behavior. Why do some libertarians get so defensive when that's pointed out?
You conflate the principles of democracy with those of capitalism. You urge me to think like a capitalist, yet suggest I change my life and startup a business to make a political point, rather than to make money. Your two suggestions (organize resistance, or start a competitor) would put me on opposite market positions (producer/consumer). I find this all confusing.
Is any action acceptable, so long as it is a "market" action? Don't my arguments in this thread count as "tell[ing] friends and family to all complain?"
Anyway, I've enjoyed our discussion so far, but I saw nothing new and useful in the last exchange, and I don't feel you responded to my diabolically clever points. So for now I'll agree to disagree. Cheers,
"why should successful magazines subsidize unsucessful magazines?"
There's nothing wrong with letting the profitable subsidize some unprofitable stuff, if overall *success* means more to you than just profit. This is why, for example, book publishers and movie studios will put out prestige titles that they know won't sell well, and are likely to lose money. They let the Bruckheimer flicks subsidize the occasional deep flick. In part because they want a shot at awards, and in part because studio execs are like everyone else in that they want to be viewed as sensitive, intelligent people and not money-grubbing hacks.
"So lets say they carry 10 "mainstream" magaizines at that lost - thats $1M a year in losses [for the whole chain]."
I'll take your numbers for now. But those are costs, not losses. If the 50% of political mags that sell go for $4 each, then they pay for themselves. Also, assume 300 other titles, again 12 copies per title, 80% of which sell, at $4 (cost to store is still $2). Total costs are $7440, total sales are $11760. So yeah, I think a store can afford to subsidize quality with $240. Monthly sales * 1000 stores * 12 months = $140 million, so $1 million for more variety is a small cost of doing business. Since Wal-Mart is by far the biggest retailer in the country, they have many, many costs of doing business that are over $1 million. Please keep their scale in mind.
And again, they can fine-tune their offerings because of their huge scale and their automated supply chains. They don't *have* to buy 12 copies of The Atlantic per store!
Plus, they might easily find they grow the market for The Atlantic. At least they can, with some pride, start advertising their magazine selection the same way they advertise their movie and music selection ("oh yeah, we got it all here, what do you want, rap, country?" You've seen the ads). There's no way they could advertise their current magazine selection without the media laughing at them. Advertising could very easily lead to an increase in magazine sales across the chain that makes this whole cost/profit discussion moot.
"for WalMart, carrying the "enlightened" stuff you want them to is...(b) contrary to the beliefs of the founders/principles"
Well, we don't know that in this case. We know it for certain kinds of music selections, but we don't know if the lack of politics/issues magazines is on principle or simple supply/demand projections.
>You're trolling me, right? So after September >11th, our response should have been to tighten >embargoes on Afghan imports, because The Market > solves all. Brilliant.
"Well first off, there is nothing to suggest that we'd be any worse off with regard to Afganistan than we are now if that had of happened. But second, no, I am not suggesting that economic principles can be applied to military conditions. I have no idea why you attempted to twist words as such. Notice how I prepared my statement by saying "in a caitialist society". Would you describe Afganistan as fitting that bill? Would you say that terrorists respond to market pressures? No, of course not. "
Oh, I see. I thought you meant that since the U.S. is a capitalist society, or that capitalism is the basis of our morality, market forces are the accepted and proper way to deal with disputes. But now I think you mean it is just practical. That is, we are all capitalists here, and we all (including Wal-Mart) respond best to market forces, so they are the most effective means to use. In which case your comments are advice, and not based on a moral imperative.
Well thanks, but my own opinion is that I'd be more effective (if I wanted to devote serious time to this concept) by complaining about Wal-Mart on Slashdot, and organizing some kind of consumer movement, than I would by packing up for this small town and trying to set up my own Fred's News to compete with the local megastore.
I guess you could call organizing consumers a form of market decision, although it's not really the organizing itself, but the act of me not buying that is my market decision. And isn't my staying in Seattle a market decision, through which I'm stating that I prefer not to live in that town and shop at that Wal-Mart? That's what you suggest above, that I "avoid doing business with them". But that's very different from before, when you suggested I move into town to compete with them.
That's a problem I have with "market forces" as the primary answer to any problem in this country. A human can only do so many actions, and many of them conflict with each other. And it may be impossible to tell from an action what message, if any, they were trying to send. As in my earlier post, it may be that someone in that town doesn't like what Wal-Mart has done to that town, but has other family or business ties that keep them from moving. ALL that can tell you is that Wal-Mart isn't such a living hell to them as to overwhelm everything else in their lives. One can't take their presence there, alone, to say much of anything about what they think of Wal-Mart. But that's okay. People are complex, and despite what Randians may think, it's perfectly okay to view them as complex, driven by many (sometimes conflicting) motivations.
"So what you are saying is that, to be non-distortive WalMart must offer every single magazine in circulation, so as not to offend or displace 12 customers? Even if that magazine loses them money?"
What I'm saying is that, because Wal-Mart has become so huge in the lives of these small towns, they should make an effort to enhance the civic life by offering some civically-oriented magazines.
If there are 12 people in the area who will buy The Atlantic, Wal-Mart will not lose money on it. Magazines are usually distributed in bundles of about a dozen, and Wal-Mart will, in this hypothetical, sell them all. Perhaps this Wal-Mart could only sell 0 to 1 copies of Tikkun or Foreign Policy, in which case they would lose money. I wouldn't ask Wal-Mart to carry magazines that never sell. But I think they *should* carry civically-minded magazines of broad interest, even some that are marginal sellers, at a small loss, as a way of giving back to the community. (This is, to a small degree, what Fred's News does, too.) (Note that if Wal-Mart uses its well-known automated supply chain systems for magazines, they can manage supplies fairly well, can probably create their own bundles of 1 Foreign Policy, 1 This, 2 That, and might not lose anything at all on the political mags.)
"Even if they disagree with the content? "
Not carrying Actual Human Entrails is a decision of taste, which I support. Tell me what is so disagreeable about carrying a few mainstream political magazines. I think your response will be "but it's their choice to make". To which I say, a chain of Wal-Mart's size and power ought to offer this, if only to be friendly and neighborly.
As I said, I saw no content at all. No National Review, and no Mother Jones. So if they are in fact avoiding political magazines for content, they are opposed to all politics in their store, and not one particular view. In a way, I find this creepier than if they just carried one political viewpoint.
"Anyone within the reach of the United States Postal Service can get virtually any magazine they wanted delivered with a simple phone call."
Maybe you don't appreciate all the services that a good newsstand provides to a community. Most obviously, it allows me to read anything of interest without having to subscribe to all the magazines the newsstand carries. Browsing is valuable. It gives me cheap access to everything, it shows me magazines I might not know about, and it shows me an interesting cover story on a magazine I normally am not interested in.
There are other benefits, too, some of them more subtle. For example, if you're in a newsstand with a real range of content, you get a different feeling than if you're in Wal-Mart's (current) magazine aisle, large as that aisle is. You sense some of the variety in thoughts and lifestyles of people around the world, and it is ennobling. If Wal-Mart would drop 5% of the dreck they carry and include some more intelligent stuff, you could get the same kind of feeling in Wal-Mart.
"And no, in a capitialist society, if you do not care enough to make a market decision then you have no legitimate gripe."
You're trolling me, right? So after September 11th, our response should have been to tighten embargoes on Afghan imports, because The Market solves all. Brilliant.
unlike the situation in China, you can move if you want. Move to an area where you have choice, move to a place that will sell you mags that you want.
I live in Seattle, and have plenty of choice; I was visiting the Midwest. But "move to a place you like better" is rarely a complete answer in itself, anyhow. Perhaps a person needs to take care of his grandmother. Perhaps he runs the family farm and doesn't want to give up on it. Perhaps he just likes the area and has friends there.
The fact that a person lives in a town without magazines outside of Wal-mart's selection does not mean that is not important to him. At most, it means that the selection issue is not strong enough to outweigh the things that keep him there. People are more complex than your explanation indicates.
Or if you don't want to move, open your own mag stand that sell all the mags that you want (and hopefully others will too).
Similar argument. Unless I feel strongly enough to move to that Midwestern town and take on Wal-Mart, I don't have a legitimate complaint?
I don't think that Walmart effects the nation as much as it reflects the nation. People want bland entertainment void of the ideas that stimulate.
I actually don't think Wal-Mart is intentionally screening out political magazines (although perhaps they are). So I agree with you insofar as you're saying Wal-Mart offers only what it thinks will sell. But my point is that it would be pretty hard to sell magazines against Wal-Mart in that town. Wal-Mart is the preferred shopping destination, not downtown. Even in a hip, BoBo urban neighborhood, a newstand is going to make most of their money from very mainstream magazines (ie, sports, entertainment, cars, home and garden). Even if all the political wonks in that Midwestern town stop by Fred's News to pick up The Atlantic once a month, it won't be enough to keep him in business, because Wal-Mart's got the bread and butter customers. So what ends up happening is Fred's News goes out of business, Wal-Mart doesn't offer The Atlantic, and the fact that there are two dozen potential buyers of The Atlantic in town is ignored.
Walmart is reflective of the status quo and if you don't like that, then please change it.
I do what I can. And I think my hypothetical above suggests why Wal-Mart in this case could be distortive, not reflective.
For the July 4th holiday, I spent a few days in a town in the Midwest. Downtown looked pretty dead, and everyone shopped at the Wal-Mart by the highway.
At one point I checked out the magazine section at the Wal-Mart, to catch up on the world. No such luck.
Outside of Time and Discover, there were absolutely *no* magazines that involved politics, current events, or any level of deep thinking. Everything was geared toward teenage girls, monster-truck fans, and needlepointing nannies. There was no Economist, Atlantic, or Harper's. I didn't even see US News or Newsweek. There certainly wasn't anything cutting edge or progressive.
Out of curiousity, the next chance I had, I checked out bookstores in the local yellow pages. 'Local' meaning a large rural area, about 50 miles by 100 miles. There is one medium-sized town in the area, and they have a Waldenbooks and an independent bookstore. But outside of that, the 5,000 sq. mile area held no other general-purpose bookstores. Just two children's bookstores, and around 10 Christian bookstores.
When Wal-Mart's the only game in town, after having driven most or all other retailers in town out of business, I think a new level of civic responsibility falls upon them. Similar to the way that a scrappy little operating system company in Albequerque can do as they wish, but when it moves to Redmond and becomes the dominant monopolist of the industry, new rules apply.
I'm not arguing for a law per se, but I think Wal-Mart, by taking over whole regions (one of their in-store slogans is "Why shop anywhere else?"), has now placed an ethical burden on itself.
"Gold suggests that the underground bacteria feed on natural hydrocarbon (oil) deposits, leading geologists to conclude--incorrectly--that the oil was produced by living things. In his view, the oil is a nonbiological byproduct of the formation of the Earth, and oil reserves are far greater than commonly believed. " ( http://www.discover.com/science_news/ancscience.ht ml )
Discover named Gold one of the top scientists of the year for his work in the nonbiological theory of the origin of oil. If you find Gold's web site, you'll see interesting descriptions of how giant releases of methane apparently happen just off the continental shelf. Sometimes these methane eruptions ignite. Sometimes, Gold theorizes, the produce a sudden, wind-like effect on aircraft, causing some of the crashes on the Eastern seaboard. Interesting theories.
"There has been a growing trend among academia for scientific exclusivism lately, that is, the idea that science can explain all things and anything else is ridiculous superstition. "
This is all a straw man. Scientists do not claim science can be used to "explain everything", if by "everything" you mean things like morality, purpose in life, etc. However, science can be used to examine/explain/understand everything that has a physical, testable, repeatable existence that is observable to any observers (as opposed to Miss Cleo's premonitions, which are observable only to her (at best)).
"there are holes in every school of thought out there; the universe is just plain not simple enough to allow for a single set of principles to explain all things."
Again, are you talking about physical, repeatable observable phenomena? If so, please provide one example of such a phenomenon that cannot be examined for better understanding with science. If rather you're talking about "What Is The Good Life?", or some other such question, those are not topics that anyone who understands science would try to answer with science. Straw man.
Slashdot Mirror
The parent's right: reducing risk is expensive.
Coincidentally, last night I watched a History Channel DVD about the race to the moon. On Apollo 11, the first moon landing, we almost failed *three times* just before landing.
The first time, the onboard computer became overloaded. A 25-year-old engineer at capcom had to make the go/no-go decision.
Then, the lunar module was coming down much too quickly; luckily, it was still an "acceptable" level.
Then, because they came down too fast, they overshot the landing spot. They only had three minutes of fuel to find a new landing spot as they hurtled over a surface filled with house-sized boulders. The Eagle finally landed with 15 seconds of fuel left.
At least three incidents that could just as easily have turned into failure and/or tragedy. Could we stomach that today?
The Smithsonian has a great interview with Ida Rhodes, who assisted Blanch.
Here.
And for all the shadow-play Palpatine has been upto in the last two flicks, his treachery is about as subtle as ...
Palpatine is treacherous? You said there would be no spoilers!!
The center of the image matches the center of the map. But the image is seriously squashed, at least at my latitude (Seattle). Compare the streets at the top of the map to the streets at the top of the image.
You will really notice the squashing if you compare the image in Google Maps to the image you get in Keyhole.
"Does this remind anyone of Farenheit 451? You know, where they burn the books so people won't revolt against the government? "
As I recall, the government didn't burn books because they were revolutionary. They burned books that people found offensive. They started with obvious things like neo-nazi and racist tracts, then concluded that almost anything could offend someone, so essentially all books became illegal. "Farenheit 451" was a novel about so-called "political correctness" (though the term was not used back then).
"Everyone's saying this movie is set in Victorian England. Queen Victoria ruled until 1901. That car, and the WWII-style German helmets, don't look "Victorian" to me."
I can't see details of this trailer too well on this machine, but... I suspect the car will turn out to run on steam. There are some terrific steampunk vistas in the original comic. It is, after all, an imaginary variation on Victorian England.
The helmets do seem to evoke the Third Reich. However, they also evoke elements that go back to armor of the Ancient Greeks. And Weird Harold, from "Fat Albert".
"but I'm suprised that this 'tree' view hasn't been investigated/implemented."
/ /s martbrowser.com/
Oh, but it has. You're describing HistoryTree, my award-winning browser plugin from 1996:-)
Here, check the Wayback Machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/19970121043309/http:
-Matt Jensen
"It's up to the professor to exploit the tools the kids have. For example, what if the professor says "Can somebody do a quick Google search to see what the consequences of the US joining the second world war later would have been?". Admitted, it's a contrived example, "
I'll cut you slack because it was an example pulled out of your hat. But it really would be a terrible use of a computer in the classroom. Your professor is asking for not just a simple, noncontroversial "fact", but rather a historical judgement.
Even if you could come up with a decent Google query and find a good matching page within a minute or two (before the class moves on), you don't have time to read and assess the argument. All you can do is parrot what you've found. This is a good question for an essay, written with careful consideration, but not good for a quick in-class lookup.
Also, this is a good example of one of the biggest dangers of Googling, particularly for students. I'll call it the Law of Distorted Significance, though someone else may have described this otherwise. In a database of content and metacontent (e.g., Google) which is sufficiently large and diverse (created by millions of people around the world), you will find nearly *anything*. That much is shown by the difficulty of googlewhacking. The danger is that you can conclude that what you've found has real significance.
Just want to throw in a note about HistoryTree, a 2D tree-based history manager plugin I released in 1996. It solved the Back Button issue.
/ /s martbrowser.com/
s ts/04 _04_97_2.shtml
s ters/710/hg.h tml
http://web.archive.org/web/19961223200819/http:
Old review at:
http://www.webreview.com/1997/04_04/strategi
For info on more navigation tools and techniques from this ancient era, check out this paper from the WWW6 conference:
http://www.scope.gmd.de/info/www6/po
-Matt Jensen
I've read 1984...
:-)
The central thesis of 1984 was that people will abuse the power they have. Once technology was developed to monitor your thoughts, thoughts would be monitored and any thought that might detract loyalty from the government would be outlawed.
Are you _sure_ you read the book?
The government did _not_ develop technology to read thoughts. They had cameras and spies everywhere, but they could not read Winston's mind. It was only when he took actual action, be beginning an affair with Julia, that the government got him.
(That's what puts so much power in the book, for me; that for all Winston knew, maybe 90% of the population was having the same thoughts as him. But because everyone protected himself by acting as a state snitch, the result was the same as if everyone were a true believer.)
"I believe this is a good thing for developers and companies to do of their own free will. I do not, however, think that it is right for our government to exclude proprietary software developers from public works."
Shouldn't the primary test be "how well does this benefit *citizens* who are paying for the development?" Your test examines only minor, secondary benefits (to developers). And your logic can be extended easily into: "our government shouldn't exclude from public works those developers who also want us to pass a 500-year patent and copyight extension in the same appropriations bill as this development contract." Sure, someone wants that, just as someone wants a government monopoly (patent/copyright) handed to them in their contract, along with the cash. But if the govt wants to offer only cash for the work, that's the offer. Microsoft could do the contract and make money. They just couldn't make the continuing rents they're used to making (and that most Fortune 500s are extremely jealous of). That's not discriminatory at all, it's just the terms offered.
"' The analog here is Republican Rome; an Emperor would appoint a Dictator (Speaker) who would wield absolute power during times of war, then hand control back to the civilian gov't when the crisis was past."
Well, the first problem with this description is that when Rome was a Republic, there was no Emperor. That, in fact, is why it was called a Republic.
Highlift Systems is sponsoring a two-day conference (Space Elevator Conference 2002) at the Seattle Sheraton, ending today. See http://www.confcon.com/sp_elev_02/sp_elev_02.html . I Googled to get the location details, here.
:-)
And yes, ny the way, they had a dinner last night at the Space Needle
>> It proves that in an unregulated market,
>> monopolists can emerge that can't be dislodged
>> by any competing firm.
>
> The problem is that our market is hardly
> "unregulated".
All right, let me restate my point: in a market where ownership of standards can create network effects (e.g., videotape formats, or OS's), failure to enforce existing antitrust regulations can allow a monopolist to gain such power that no other profit-seeking competitor can threaten it.
Can we agree on that?
"Economics is not about monetary profits and prices. One recent example that most geeks should relate to: The movie "A Beautiful Mind" showed John Nash receiving the nobel prize. In the movie he discovered the key to this theory while analyzing how guys pick up chicks. It was a funny scene, but it was pure economics. And no market prices or monetary profits anywhere to be seen."
That was an example of Game Theory, not Economics. (One difference being that Game Theory creates a tiny, artificial world, with heavy constraints and no currency that can be used to exchange different forms of value in spheres outside that world. In the Prisoner's Dilemma, you're not 'allowed' to create a third alternative, like making a prison break.)
Of course, there is the problem that economists don't even agree on what falls in their field, because to do so illustrates the overreaching and unscientific claims upon which it is built. For example, I recently checked out 10 different Econ 101 textbooks. Half of them gave vague definitions, and the other half said quite plainly that "we're not going to define economics; it's easier to just look at the subjects covered in this book."
The main question here is "can conventional economic theory explain the free software movement?" Now look again at "A Beautiful Mind". The "conventional theory" about getting girls was the "survival of the fittest" contest, as one character put it; everyone goes for the prettiest girl. That is HOW all characters except Nash actually acted! That theory described actual behavior very well; it's just that Nash's theory suggested a more optimal global solution. Similarly, people creating free software are motivated by their own, non-market theory of what they should do. Unlike companies, they were not making market calculations.
An economist would now say, "watch what people do, not what they say." Meaning that although people don't think they're motivated by market values, they are. Or rather, it's still possible to view them that way, and gives economists a chance to bend the model to encompass them. But in a sphere without scarcity (digital data), and with $0 prices, how can market theory improve the "efficiency' of free software? You already have an answer to the question of people's motivations, and without a scarcity problem or a fungible value system, economists have little to offer here except distortion of motives.
"Free software has value, even though its free. To claim that the free market is only about pricing things in terms of CASH is false. Pricing includes value, and everything that goes into a transaction-- labor, for instance. By your theory, every worker is getting a free ride because they put no money in and get money out."
A basic proposition of Economics is that everything of value is convertible into cash. If I want to take time off from work and go to the beach, there is an implied calculation I make about the dollar value (as lost income) to me of that day at the beach.
That's still a very kludgy theory, because research shows people don't really make decisions that way. And when you get into free software, standard theory becomes almost impossible. Without pricing signals from either buyers or sellers, you cannot make economic statements or predictions. In fact, you might asymptotic behavior at $0. How much money will it take to get Linus to stop work on Linux? Possibly an infinite amount. Because what he values is *not* fungible to cash.
"Open source is the definition of Market Economics. It does not need its own theory-"
It might be *possible* to describe the Open Source movement in terms of standard market forces, but it is not parsimonious.
I wonder whether you've read Benkler's paper. It's long, and as he says, he spends "substantial space in this article explaining why peer-production processes appear to respond mostly to cues other than price signals." *That* is clearly one aspect that removes this from the realm of market forces. If you want to argue tautologies about how people always do what's in their best interests, etc., go ahead. But you're not describing standard market economic models unless actions are motivated by profits and regulated by prices. Free-as-in-beer software may be used by some companies to save money, but that's not why most programmers create it.
"[T]he emergence of the open source movement proves that free markets work-- whenever one company gets to monopolistic, under free market theory, competitors emerge. Lots of competitors have emerged to Microsoft, but Open Source is the first one to really sustain a battle and change the terms of the war."
Are you serious? This proves the opposite. It proves that in an unregulated market, monopolists can emerge that can't be dislodged by any competing firm. Only people who are not motivated by profits have a chance, and only by creating a product that has zero marginal costs (digital data) and zero price. Those assumptions overturn all of the first chapter of Econ 101.
Market forces do not explain all aspects of human behavior. Why do some libertarians get so defensive when that's pointed out?
You conflate the principles of democracy with those of capitalism. You urge me to think like a capitalist, yet suggest I change my life and startup a business to make a political point, rather than to make money. Your two suggestions (organize resistance, or start a competitor) would put me on opposite market positions (producer/consumer). I find this all confusing.
Is any action acceptable, so long as it is a "market" action? Don't my arguments in this thread count as "tell[ing] friends and family to all complain?"
Anyway, I've enjoyed our discussion so far, but I saw nothing new and useful in the last exchange, and I don't feel you responded to my diabolically clever points. So for now I'll agree to disagree. Cheers,
Matt
"why should successful magazines subsidize unsucessful magazines?"
...(b) contrary to the beliefs of the founders/principles"
There's nothing wrong with letting the profitable subsidize some unprofitable stuff, if overall *success* means more to you than just profit. This is why, for example, book publishers and movie studios will put out prestige titles that they know won't sell well, and are likely to lose money. They let the Bruckheimer flicks subsidize the occasional deep flick. In part because they want a shot at awards, and in part because studio execs are like everyone else in that they want to be viewed as sensitive, intelligent people and not money-grubbing hacks.
"So lets say they carry 10 "mainstream" magaizines at that lost - thats $1M a year in losses [for the whole chain]."
I'll take your numbers for now. But those are costs, not losses. If the 50% of political mags that sell go for $4 each, then they pay for themselves. Also, assume 300 other titles, again 12 copies per title, 80% of which sell, at $4 (cost to store is still $2). Total costs are $7440, total sales are $11760. So yeah, I think a store can afford to subsidize quality with $240. Monthly sales * 1000 stores * 12 months = $140 million, so $1 million for more variety is a small cost of doing business. Since Wal-Mart is by far the biggest retailer in the country, they have many, many costs of doing business that are over $1 million. Please keep their scale in mind.
And again, they can fine-tune their offerings because of their huge scale and their automated supply chains. They don't *have* to buy 12 copies of The Atlantic per store!
Plus, they might easily find they grow the market for The Atlantic. At least they can, with some pride, start advertising their magazine selection the same way they advertise their movie and music selection ("oh yeah, we got it all here, what do you want, rap, country?" You've seen the ads). There's no way they could advertise their current magazine selection without the media laughing at them. Advertising could very easily lead to an increase in magazine sales across the chain that makes this whole cost/profit discussion moot.
"for WalMart, carrying the "enlightened" stuff you want them to is
Well, we don't know that in this case. We know it for certain kinds of music selections, but we don't know if the lack of politics/issues magazines is on principle or simple supply/demand projections.
>You're trolling me, right? So after September
>11th, our response should have been to tighten
>embargoes on Afghan imports, because The Market
> solves all. Brilliant.
"Well first off, there is nothing to suggest that we'd be any worse off with regard to Afganistan than we are now if that had of happened. But second, no, I am not suggesting that economic principles can be applied to military conditions. I have no idea why you attempted to twist words as such. Notice how I prepared my statement by saying "in a caitialist society". Would you describe Afganistan as fitting that bill? Would you say that terrorists respond to market pressures? No, of course not. "
Oh, I see. I thought you meant that since the U.S. is a capitalist society, or that capitalism is the basis of our morality, market forces are the accepted and proper way to deal with disputes. But now I think you mean it is just practical. That is, we are all capitalists here, and we all (including Wal-Mart) respond best to market forces, so they are the most effective means to use. In which case your comments are advice, and not based on a moral imperative.
Well thanks, but my own opinion is that I'd be more effective (if I wanted to devote serious time to this concept) by complaining about Wal-Mart on Slashdot, and organizing some kind of consumer movement, than I would by packing up for this small town and trying to set up my own Fred's News to compete with the local megastore.
I guess you could call organizing consumers a form of market decision, although it's not really the organizing itself, but the act of me not buying that is my market decision. And isn't my staying in Seattle a market decision, through which I'm stating that I prefer not to live in that town and shop at that Wal-Mart? That's what you suggest above, that I "avoid doing business with them". But that's very different from before, when you suggested I move into town to compete with them.
That's a problem I have with "market forces" as the primary answer to any problem in this country. A human can only do so many actions, and many of them conflict with each other. And it may be impossible to tell from an action what message, if any, they were trying to send. As in my earlier post, it may be that someone in that town doesn't like what Wal-Mart has done to that town, but has other family or business ties that keep them from moving. ALL that can tell you is that Wal-Mart isn't such a living hell to them as to overwhelm everything else in their lives. One can't take their presence there, alone, to say much of anything about what they think of Wal-Mart. But that's okay. People are complex, and despite what Randians may think, it's perfectly okay to view them as complex, driven by many (sometimes conflicting) motivations.
"So what you are saying is that, to be non-distortive WalMart must offer every single magazine in circulation, so as not to offend or displace 12 customers? Even if that magazine loses them money?"
What I'm saying is that, because Wal-Mart has become so huge in the lives of these small towns, they should make an effort to enhance the civic life by offering some civically-oriented magazines.
If there are 12 people in the area who will buy The Atlantic, Wal-Mart will not lose money on it. Magazines are usually distributed in bundles of about a dozen, and Wal-Mart will, in this hypothetical, sell them all. Perhaps this Wal-Mart could only sell 0 to 1 copies of Tikkun or Foreign Policy, in which case they would lose money. I wouldn't ask Wal-Mart to carry magazines that never sell. But I think they *should* carry civically-minded magazines of broad interest, even some that are marginal sellers, at a small loss, as a way of giving back to the community. (This is, to a small degree, what Fred's News does, too.) (Note that if Wal-Mart uses its well-known automated supply chain systems for magazines, they can manage supplies fairly well, can probably create their own bundles of 1 Foreign Policy, 1 This, 2 That, and might not lose anything at all on the political mags.)
"Even if they disagree with the content? "
Not carrying Actual Human Entrails is a decision of taste, which I support. Tell me what is so disagreeable about carrying a few mainstream political magazines. I think your response will be "but it's their choice to make". To which I say, a chain of Wal-Mart's size and power ought to offer this, if only to be friendly and neighborly.
As I said, I saw no content at all. No National Review, and no Mother Jones. So if they are in fact avoiding political magazines for content, they are opposed to all politics in their store, and not one particular view. In a way, I find this creepier than if they just carried one political viewpoint.
"Anyone within the reach of the United States Postal Service can get virtually any magazine they wanted delivered with a simple phone call."
Maybe you don't appreciate all the services that a good newsstand provides to a community. Most obviously, it allows me to read anything of interest without having to subscribe to all the magazines the newsstand carries. Browsing is valuable. It gives me cheap access to everything, it shows me magazines I might not know about, and it shows me an interesting cover story on a magazine I normally am not interested in.
There are other benefits, too, some of them more subtle. For example, if you're in a newsstand with a real range of content, you get a different feeling than if you're in Wal-Mart's (current) magazine aisle, large as that aisle is. You sense some of the variety in thoughts and lifestyles of people around the world, and it is ennobling. If Wal-Mart would drop 5% of the dreck they carry and include some more intelligent stuff, you could get the same kind of feeling in Wal-Mart.
"And no, in a capitialist society, if you do not care enough to make a market decision then you have no legitimate gripe."
You're trolling me, right? So after September 11th, our response should have been to tighten embargoes on Afghan imports, because The Market solves all. Brilliant.
unlike the situation in China, you can move if you want. Move to an area where you have choice, move to a place that will sell you mags that you want.
I live in Seattle, and have plenty of choice; I was visiting the Midwest. But "move to a place you like better" is rarely a complete answer in itself, anyhow. Perhaps a person needs to take care of his grandmother. Perhaps he runs the family farm and doesn't want to give up on it. Perhaps he just likes the area and has friends there.
The fact that a person lives in a town without magazines outside of Wal-mart's selection does not mean that is not important to him. At most, it means that the selection issue is not strong enough to outweigh the things that keep him there. People are more complex than your explanation indicates.
Or if you don't want to move, open your own mag stand that sell all the mags that you want (and hopefully others will too).
Similar argument. Unless I feel strongly enough to move to that Midwestern town and take on Wal-Mart, I don't have a legitimate complaint?
I don't think that Walmart effects the nation as much as it reflects the nation. People want bland entertainment void of the ideas that stimulate.
I actually don't think Wal-Mart is intentionally screening out political magazines (although perhaps they are). So I agree with you insofar as you're saying Wal-Mart offers only what it thinks will sell. But my point is that it would be pretty hard to sell magazines against Wal-Mart in that town. Wal-Mart is the preferred shopping destination, not downtown. Even in a hip, BoBo urban neighborhood, a newstand is going to make most of their money from very mainstream magazines (ie, sports, entertainment, cars, home and garden). Even if all the political wonks in that Midwestern town stop by Fred's News to pick up The Atlantic once a month, it won't be enough to keep him in business, because Wal-Mart's got the bread and butter customers. So what ends up happening is Fred's News goes out of business, Wal-Mart doesn't offer The Atlantic, and the fact that there are two dozen potential buyers of The Atlantic in town is ignored.
Walmart is reflective of the status quo and if you don't like that, then please change it.
I do what I can. And I think my hypothetical above suggests why Wal-Mart in this case could be distortive, not reflective.
Matt Jensen
NewsBlip.com
Seattle
For the July 4th holiday, I spent a few days in a town in the Midwest. Downtown looked pretty dead, and everyone shopped at the Wal-Mart by the highway.
At one point I checked out the magazine section at the Wal-Mart, to catch up on the world. No such luck.
Outside of Time and Discover, there were absolutely *no* magazines that involved politics, current events, or any level of deep thinking. Everything was geared toward teenage girls, monster-truck fans, and needlepointing nannies. There was no Economist, Atlantic, or Harper's. I didn't even see US News or Newsweek. There certainly wasn't anything cutting edge or progressive.
Out of curiousity, the next chance I had, I checked out bookstores in the local yellow pages. 'Local' meaning a large rural area, about 50 miles by 100 miles. There is one medium-sized town in the area, and they have a Waldenbooks and an independent bookstore. But outside of that, the 5,000 sq. mile area held no other general-purpose bookstores. Just two children's bookstores, and around 10 Christian bookstores.
When Wal-Mart's the only game in town, after having driven most or all other retailers in town out of business, I think a new level of civic responsibility falls upon them. Similar to the way that a scrappy little operating system company in Albequerque can do as they wish, but when it moves to Redmond and becomes the dominant monopolist of the industry, new rules apply.
I'm not arguing for a law per se, but I think Wal-Mart, by taking over whole regions (one of their in-store slogans is "Why shop anywhere else?"), has now placed an ethical burden on itself.
More info on your Thomas Gold connection. ...
t ml )
"Gold suggests that the underground bacteria feed on natural hydrocarbon (oil) deposits, leading geologists to conclude--incorrectly--that the oil was produced by living things. In his view, the oil is a nonbiological byproduct of the formation of the Earth, and oil reserves are far greater than commonly believed. "
( http://www.discover.com/science_news/ancscience.h
Discover named Gold one of the top scientists of the year for his work in the nonbiological theory of the origin of oil. If you find Gold's web site, you'll see interesting descriptions of how giant releases of methane apparently happen just off the continental shelf. Sometimes these methane eruptions ignite. Sometimes, Gold theorizes, the produce a sudden, wind-like effect on aircraft, causing some of the crashes on the Eastern seaboard. Interesting theories.
"There has been a growing trend among academia for scientific exclusivism lately, that is, the idea that science can explain all things and anything else is ridiculous superstition. "
This is all a straw man. Scientists do not claim science can be used to "explain everything", if by "everything" you mean things like morality, purpose in life, etc. However, science can be used to examine/explain/understand everything that has a physical, testable, repeatable existence that is observable to any observers (as opposed to Miss Cleo's premonitions, which are observable only to her (at best)).
"there are holes in every school of thought out there; the universe is just plain not simple enough to allow for a single set of principles to explain all things."
Again, are you talking about physical, repeatable observable phenomena? If so, please provide one example of such a phenomenon that cannot be examined for better understanding with science. If rather you're talking about "What Is The Good Life?", or some other such question, those are not topics that anyone who understands science would try to answer with science. Straw man.
"religious beliefs exist because some psychos a long time ago claimed that Ralph the Holy Head of Lettuce laid down the law thusly"
Did you see that episode of What's Happening too? Rerun in the cult? Good stuff.