The real problem here is the 'Six Million dollar' bit. Even if nano-tech gives all the bonuses that some of its developers think it will, it's an expensive technology to develop.
Six million US dollars, in 1976, equates to a shade under 19 billion in 2001 dollars. How's that for expensive?
Numbers courtesy of the Inflation Calculator at http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ .
Phorecast downloads all your email into a database of your choosing; it is database abstracted using PHP's PEAR DB library.
Phorecast is a web application written in PHP that combines email, calendar, and address book functions. It is language abstracted, so you can write a.tsv translation file for any language you like. Version 0.5 (on the way) improves these functions, and adds a todo list as well.
Full disclosure: I wrote it, and I use it as my primary email client.
Synopsis: DDT has saved infinitely more lives than it has ever cut short. Rachel Carson, the person who is single-most responsible for the outcry against DDT, based her books on faulty experiments. DDT was *not* proved to cause eggshell thinning for wild birds, and was *not* proved to cause cancer in mammals at rates 33,000 times higher than average exposure.
The banning of DDT was a political expedient not based on science; by not allowing its use today, we are condeming to malarial death any number of adults and children in developing nations. See the link above for an exhaustive, detailed debunking of the "DDT Kills" myth.
It is, in short, capitalism and long-term self-interest. That's only the short version of the answer. The longer version is this:
If I have X and want Z, and you have Z but want X, you and I come to some mutually beneficial arrangement for trading them (short of using force, obviously -- that's a separate discussion). Usually that arrangement is made simple through the use of money, a store of value. That is, you and I trade something we value for something else we value. (The "self-interest" part is that we do this not because we want to help the other guy, but because we want the best for ourselves; c.f. Adam Smith and the invisible hand.)
This is the important part: money is not the only thing we value. We may value recognition, satisfaction, helping others, pride of effort, and so on -- all non-monetary values. They may indirectly have monetary value, but not necessarily, and the monetary value may not have motivated us in the first place.
Here's the point: Open Source software people are just ad self-interested as any other group. Their motivations. while not always monetary, are just as capitalistic as anyone else's. They are frequently interested in building "reputation capital," not only financial capital.
I cannot believe this got modded up to 5. Regardless of Marx's indisputable influence on modern economics, his work is not applicable due to inherent inconsistencies with the objective world.
Therefore, it is impossible to produce technology without capitalism, and impossible to enjoy it under capitalism.
Oh, really? Are you not enjoying the computer you were working with in order to write your posting? Are you not enjoying the house in which you live? The transportation infrastructure you use (indirectly) to haev food and clothing and all manner of good delivered to you? The immunizations you received so that your life would not be ended prematurely by disease?
The idea that capitalism cannot be enjoyed by those immeresed in it is demonstrably false, so much so as to be regarded as completely insane.
The only solution is for the global working class to declare "enough", revolt against capitalism and live with that day's level of technical progress.
Since "Das Kapital" was written in the mid-1800s, I'm sure you would be happier if the workers had revolted back then and condemned you to a life without painkillers, full of disease and early death, slavery, and a host of other physical and social ills.
All that Karl did was misestimate by an order of magnitude the level of technology needed for worldwide revolution (and end of progress) to be worthwhile.
He "misestimated" it by an infinity of magnitudes. There will be no end of progress, so long as capitalism remains, and thank Jeebus for it!
And while we're at it, define "worthwhile" -- what is for you, may not be for me.
This kind of dumbness, especially on Slashdot, is inexcusable.
I'd very much like to see US politics get overhauled. It wouldn't even require a change to many of our laws or documents. The two party system has a stronghold on our choices for candidates in almost every election, and it is very rare that a third party candidate wins at any level of public office. Unfortunately, I think we'll be seeing the same old thing for many years to come.
The problem is not "the law," as you state here. The law has been very clear for 200 years now, as far as the Federal government is concerned, and yet that government has been allowed to far overstep its legal bounds.
The problem is instead the expectations and experience of the population, combined with mass-media reinforcement and propagation of those expectations. The stronghold is not externally-imposed by a two-party system. If anything, it is internally-imposed by the great majority of the population who neither know nor care about the alternative ideas out there (even if some are really "out there";-).
The only overhaul required for the political system is for you to overhaul the foundations of the thinking of those around you. Only if you can convince, educate, and enlighten the people you meet about the options open to them, can you even begin to think about overhauling the political system as a whole.
Campus Pipeline is not a passive banner-ad system, as some here have intimated. Instead, it appears CP has the capability to very closely and individually target their ads based on demographic data.
I work at a university that has just gone live with Campus Pipeline, and I attempted the signup process two weeks ago. As part of the signup form, you are instructed -- among other things -- to "Select your favorite pastimes from the list below." (At this point I chose to terminate the signup process by closing my browser.)
The voluntary disclosure of such personal data, when combined with the purely academic-related information already captured by the school's student information system, provides a demographic database of *huge* value to Campus Pipeline.
In my meeting with the CP reps, they said they do not sell the information directly to advertisers. Instead, they say act as an intermediary for a "select group" of advertisers. The advertiser approaches CP and asks for an ad to be delivered to a target group on campus, then CP takes the ad and delivers it. CP says it has "strict criteria" as to the type of ad it will accept for delivery.
It seems to be a system just waiting for fraud and/or corruption -- and to boot, I don't even get a tuition decrease for providing valuable information to advertisers.
Guy Kawasaki (or Apple Evangelism fame) published a book a year or two back about "How To Drive Your Competition Crazy." One of the points he made was that you need to use your own product on a daily basis; not only does this give you incentive to improve it, but if you if you can't use it, then you know it's not very good.
Slashdot Mirror
Six million US dollars, in 1976, equates to a shade under 19 billion in 2001 dollars. How's that for expensive?
Numbers courtesy of the Inflation Calculator at
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ .
I wonder if she's related to Lady 3Jane Tessier-Ashpool... ;-)
Phorecast downloads all your email into a database of your choosing; it is database abstracted using PHP's PEAR DB library.
.tsv translation file for any language you like. Version 0.5 (on the way) improves these functions, and adds a todo list as well.
Phorecast is a web application written in PHP that combines email, calendar, and address book functions. It is language abstracted, so you can write a
Full disclosure: I wrote it, and I use it as my primary email client.
Visit http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm for full background and debunking of the "DDT Kills People" Myth.
Synopsis: DDT has saved infinitely more lives than it has ever cut short. Rachel Carson, the person who is single-most responsible for the outcry against DDT, based her books on faulty experiments. DDT was *not* proved to cause eggshell thinning for wild birds, and was *not* proved to cause cancer in mammals at rates 33,000 times higher than average exposure.
The banning of DDT was a political expedient not based on science; by not allowing its use today, we are condeming to malarial death any number of adults and children in developing nations. See the link above for an exhaustive, detailed debunking of the "DDT Kills" myth.
It is, in short, capitalism and long-term self-interest. That's only the short version of the answer. The longer version is this:
If I have X and want Z, and you have Z but want X, you and I come to some mutually beneficial arrangement for trading them (short of using force, obviously -- that's a separate discussion). Usually that arrangement is made simple through the use of money, a store of value. That is, you and I trade something we value for something else we value. (The "self-interest" part is that we do this not because we want to help the other guy, but because we want the best for ourselves; c.f. Adam Smith and the invisible hand.)
This is the important part: money is not the only thing we value. We may value recognition, satisfaction, helping others, pride of effort, and so on -- all non-monetary values. They may indirectly have monetary value, but not necessarily, and the monetary value may not have motivated us in the first place.
Here's the point: Open Source software people are just ad self-interested as any other group. Their motivations. while not always monetary, are just as capitalistic as anyone else's. They are frequently interested in building "reputation capital," not only financial capital.
I cannot believe this got modded up to 5. Regardless of Marx's indisputable influence on modern economics, his work is not applicable due to inherent inconsistencies with the objective world.
Oh, really? Are you not enjoying the computer you were working with in order to write your posting? Are you not enjoying the house in which you live? The transportation infrastructure you use (indirectly) to haev food and clothing and all manner of good delivered to you? The immunizations you received so that your life would not be ended prematurely by disease?
The idea that capitalism cannot be enjoyed by those immeresed in it is demonstrably false, so much so as to be regarded as completely insane.
Since "Das Kapital" was written in the mid-1800s, I'm sure you would be happier if the workers had revolted back then and condemned you to a life without painkillers, full of disease and early death, slavery, and a host of other physical and social ills.
He "misestimated" it by an infinity of magnitudes. There will be no end of progress, so long as capitalism remains, and thank Jeebus for it! And while we're at it, define "worthwhile" -- what is for you, may not be for me. This kind of dumbness, especially on Slashdot, is inexcusable.
Hear, hear, Throw Away Account. An excellent lesson and prediction. :-)
Maul wrote:
The problem is not "the law," as you state here. The law has been very clear for 200 years now, as far as the Federal government is concerned, and yet that government has been allowed to far overstep its legal bounds.
The problem is instead the expectations and experience of the population, combined with mass-media reinforcement and propagation of those expectations. The stronghold is not externally-imposed by a two-party system. If anything, it is internally-imposed by the great majority of the population who neither know nor care about the alternative ideas out there (even if some are really "out there" ;-).
The only overhaul required for the political system is for you to overhaul the foundations of the thinking of those around you. Only if you can convince, educate, and enlighten the people you meet about the options open to them, can you even begin to think about overhauling the political system as a whole.
Campus Pipeline is not a passive banner-ad system, as some here have intimated. Instead, it appears CP has the capability to very closely and individually target their ads based on demographic data.
I work at a university that has just gone live with Campus Pipeline, and I attempted the signup process two weeks ago. As part of the signup form, you are instructed -- among other things -- to "Select your favorite pastimes from the list below." (At this point I chose to terminate the signup process by closing my browser.)
The voluntary disclosure of such personal data, when combined with the purely academic-related information already captured by the school's student information system, provides a demographic database of *huge* value to Campus Pipeline.
In my meeting with the CP reps, they said they do not sell the information directly to advertisers. Instead, they say act as an intermediary for a "select group" of advertisers. The advertiser approaches CP and asks for an ad to be delivered to a target group on campus, then CP takes the ad and delivers it. CP says it has "strict criteria" as to the type of ad it will accept for delivery.
It seems to be a system just waiting for fraud and/or corruption -- and to boot, I don't even get a tuition decrease for providing valuable information to advertisers.
Guy Kawasaki (or Apple Evangelism fame) published a book a year or two back about "How To Drive Your Competition Crazy." One of the points he made was that you need to use your own product on a daily basis; not only does this give you incentive to improve it, but if you if you can't use it, then you know it's not very good.
Need I say more?