Here's a complete waste of a politician's time -- laws that only make a statement, but don't actually change much. I see so many laws (daily) that don't actually do anything, they just say things:
H. RES. 99: Expressing the condolences of the House of Representatives to the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks in Madrid that occurred one year ago
H. RES. 59: Providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 36) expressing the continued support of Congress for equal access of military recruiters to institutions of higher education.
Expressing? Providing? Favoring? What exactly are these public figures DOING?
I don't think this law is honestly going to create more open source usage by their government, nor is it really going to change much. Even laws requiring the use of open source are only as good as the government can enforce, which is probably nil. I did some consulting a dozen years ago for a government organization, and I couldn't get one office to settle on a single application -- everyone had favorites they wouldn't give up.
Yep, I knew I should have said "~$1M" instead of "$10K" mere nanoseconds after hitting reply. Doh.
Nonetheless, Google isn't just giving me the "oh, how altruistic" feeling. I openly applaud them in this, but I still see how they gain from it, too. I'm not saying gain is bad, being Slashdot's King of Profit.
Having everyone work on the same problem is far more profitable now that you have differing results tending to the same problem. You can invest in seeking new attacks on issues you already consider solved.
It doesn't surprise me that Google continues to increase Brain Drain in other big IT-focused companies (Microsoft, etc).
Google seems to realize that information is the most valuable commodity now and in the future. While most companies fight to contain their hold of old information, Google invests in new ways to sort and distribute the information others have created.
Programming is the real weapon of the war to produce information and sort it. By enabling programmers to compete, for profit, Google finds a huge new resource: ideas. What will the next information gathering or sorting device be? Hiring 15,000 people would cost millions. Forcing them to compete cost $10k.
Unfortunately, this is counter-productivity for most folk here. 15000 people just worked for free, and Google reaped the short term benefits. It'll be interesting to see how Google utilizes the optimized routines of non-winners, if they're allowed to.
I agree about Mcdevitt, although I've re-read the series once or twice. Infinity Beach is by far my favorite mystery of his.
His release timing of his Hutch books is perfect, though. Just long enough to reinvigorate interest and introduce more readers. Plus for an OLD author, he's very well connected to fans online.
In Jack McDevitt's Hutch series of books, the passengers on intersolar flights passed thetime by "starring" in movies digitally redone with the passengers as the characters.
I was thinking about how hilarious this would be in real life, and how it could reinvigorate certain movies in theaters with minimal seating if they had decent hardware to sample random audience members (one person per group). I realized a fisheye lens can capture deptch with the right software.
Imagine how "cool" it would be to revisit Indy Jones or Star Wars or Usual Suspects where someone in your group was one of the actors? Even a bit part would lead to great inside jokes, and meeting up with new groups would be easy, too.
I'd spend $20/ticket for the social experience.//OT
, it is much more likely that it will be compromised if I leave it on a network server out there where any would-be spammer or identity thief can bribe underpaid sysadmins to give them a copy. Very. Strong. Encryption.
No one is going to host several hundred gigs of data for me for free. Neither do you. Cost of drive + labor + electricity + backups. Plus, how many hard drives out there have wasted, unused space? IMHO, shared storage will be much cheaper per gig for the average user.
What happens to your data and your privacy terms when your hosting service is acquired by a larger company with less scruples? What happens when a bank gets acquired? What happens when a car dealer runs a credit check on you? Both don't seem to worry you.
Also, more competition does not mean razor thin margins. It can mean better service, more features and/or lower pricing.
Just like retail is facing a death march, so is the PC, the TV, the phone, the iPod, the DVD player, the cable box, the newspaper, and so much more.
Convergence is not coming, its here. Its only going to get "worse."
Wireless broadband everywhere is just around the corner. Why store data on a PC or a LAN at all? Constant repair/upgrade/update/crash concerns. When 2Mbps wireless is truly a commodity, change will be imminent.
What data do YOU store? How about the average household? MP3? Movies on DVD? Thesis? Magazines in a bin for the past 3 years? Family photo albums? No, they won't disappear, not immediately.
Once that 2Mbps wireless is that commodity, data warehouses will be, too. No more backup concerns, no hardware-go-booms, no constant PC replacements. Just rent the space as you need it. Need more power? Its there.
Software rental (client-server thin networks) will be the next step. It will happen. No patching, no $250/year license for Ofiice 2006, no virus concerns, just pay-as-you-go. IT consultants beware.
The new TVs are just 1024x768 plasmas or LCDs. A $50 set-top box transcieves to Internet2. Your PDA will have the same access to your data as your home dumb terminal and office dumb terminal. All your contacts, movies, songs, personal and business data.
Why even buy music or movies? Pay-per-play!
Privacy? Few care. DRM? They're working on it for this future, not for piracy today.
I know. The LRC has "taken in" most of my favorite writers, bloggers and Op-Editors. Few of these folk share the same ideas, but the site is now the main container of AnCap/Austrian/Paleolib writings.
That makes it difficult to provide other sites. I'm working on it -- Wiki has become a good source, but I've found a few others.
I write solely from my PDA, making it very difficult to access many sources, too. It's also hard just to link, but if I don't I have to type more than possible from the on screen keyboard:)
Thanks for the comment. I'm not here to sway opinion or convince anyone that I'm "right," just trying to offer more non-noise.
The federal government was only meant to put checks on the States to make sure they didn't prevent interstate commerce by imposing tariffs or embargos on each other. Bad FDR, Taft, and Lincoln.
The AnCap side of me agrees that regulations at any level is ridiculous. But I'm no Utopian.. The federalist paleolib side of me realizes total freedom is going to take social evolution. The Constitution allots this regulation to the States and the People. I can only hope that states differ in all regulations based on what the people expect.
Money == Power by my definition of both, yes. Money is not bad power.
Any individual that can do a bad act legally is either in government or is licensed by government to perform that bad act, legally. Remove government's unlimited power to do bad, restrain government to strictly enforce contracts and punish bad acts, and you'll see FAR fewer bad acts.
If government wasn't spending trillions on restricting freedom, those trillions would be in our economy, raising wages, building businesses, helping charities and spreading wealth.
Big business is only "bad" through regulations that create monopolies and restrict competition.
Synapsis: This head alien interrogates others like it regarding its numerous abuses by Man. Freaky episodes about the aliens' fashion, body morphing in their latter life stage, even discussions about how they can get their alien race to win the Presidency.
Money is the universal exchange mechanism for conventional power.
Not true! Money is nothing but a medium for exchange and has nothing to do with power.
First, money was a creation to aid in bartering in large groups. Money IS time stored. You give me product X, I give you a neutral item called money that is just a storage of time savings redeemable in the future.
After pondering my initial comment, I realized the source of confusion. To me money = speech as the redemption of money is a form of expression. I am exchanging this money I received in the past (for saving someone else time) today to save me time. That exchange is expressing my desire to save myself time by using someone else's product or service. Hence money is merely a "Tivo" for my time.
Now, power is merely the ability of someone to perform a task. Power is not bad. The task a person can perform is only bad when it harms another person's ability to perform a task they want to do. Kill a person, they can't perform any task anymore. Steal from a person, they have to perform the task of work to replace that item, instead of the task of resting and using the item.
But government has a unique monopoly of being allowed to perform bad tasks legally. They can kill someone, take their items, or force them to perform tasks they don't want to. This power is bad.
If someone has stored a lot future time (money), they can save a lot of current time by giving that stored future time to this person who has the ability to force others to work NOW to give the original person their time savings. This is bad.
In essence, money is never bad. Power is not bad, either. Only certain tasks are bad, if they harm another's ability to perform the tasks they desire. Only government can do bad legally.
The RIAA believes it has a right to control who listens to music they've been licensed to distribute. Every format has been prone to piracy. To control the music means controlling the media and player.
Why not dump CDs and iTMS and set up private listening booths in every town. Force the listener to undress completely (no recording devices), charge them based on demand of listening booth use, profit!!
Or or or!!
MLM-style music. Sell a given song to 5 people at $1M a pop. Let them resell to their downline of 5 people at $250K each, and the downline sells it to their downline of 5 people at $55K each, and so on. Everyone makes 10% profit (plus sales help books and conference fees)! If you catch anyone listening to the song illegally, you can enforce your property rights directly.
Just because criminals would continue to engage in an activity if it was made illegal, doesn't mean there' no benefit to be gaining from changing the law.
Good point, I'll amend:
First, I define criminal by saying "A criminal is an individual who violates nother individual's property or body without consent, or violates a contract." With my definition, rape, murder, theft and breached contracts are crimes. I'll accept a government that enforces these rules.
Wal Mart wants your land. Today, they contribute to a candidate in favor of eminent domain. Your property would be violated, so the power to take it is unjust. Cancel eminent domain, now Wal Mart won't bribe the politician (legally or illegally) to take your property.
Mike Brown owns a pool business. He could advertise and hope private citizens would hire him. Or he could donate to some board members who would createba public pool. They tax you to build a pool, Mike profits greatly. How would the economy be helped if you spent those tax dollars robbed from you?
Government can do just fine limiting themselves to just the crimes I noted, not building pools, stealing properties or enabling cronies.
why did the soldiers kill the 50,000 innocents? They were given the command by those with power.
Were they paid by the government? Tax dollars stolen from people who would have used the money to drive the economy, not to murder.
Were they supplied guns and weapons paid for by the government? Weapons built by cronies of those in power, paid from stolen funds (taxation and inflation).
Soldiers derive their power from the money that supports them, not the other way around. The money came from the power to tax, using "legal" force to derive that power.
The money followed the power.
Remove the power to tax and inflate and use force offensively. The money won't flow in that direction.
If 50,000 wealthy citizens kill 50,000 innocents, how many will get caught? Even 1 in 3 is bad odds, why risk it?
If 50,000 soldiers kill 50,000 innocents, no one holds blame. Government monopoly on force.
If Wal-Mart spends $1M to get an all powerful law passed in their favor, no one thinks twice. If that law was illegal, Wal Mart would spend that $1M competitively. Throwing money at government is cheaper and more likely to work since government has the power to make preferential laws. If they didn't have such ill power, businesses would use the money to compete, not control.
You all who call me naive and blind should re-assess your beliefs.
When Congress and the Senate were restrained, government was peaceful and small. Even up until 1913 government used only 8% of our wealth, and we as a country flourished. Money can not be a creator of evil, but government's monopoly over the use of force is.
Restrict the power and the donated money will dwindle.
Slashdot Mirror
But the bugs that cost billions of dollars to fix also have some interesting "unintended consequences:"
1. More IT consultants find more work
2. More F/OSS developers create more solutions to the Microsoft issues
3. ???
4. Profit!
Here's a complete waste of a politician's time -- laws that only make a statement, but don't actually change much. I see so many laws (daily) that don't actually do anything, they just say things:
H. RES. 99: Expressing the condolences of the House of Representatives to the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks in Madrid that occurred one year ago
H. RES. 59: Providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 36) expressing the continued support of Congress for equal access of military recruiters to institutions of higher education.
Expressing? Providing? Favoring? What exactly are these public figures DOING?
I don't think this law is honestly going to create more open source usage by their government, nor is it really going to change much. Even laws requiring the use of open source are only as good as the government can enforce, which is probably nil. I did some consulting a dozen years ago for a government organization, and I couldn't get one office to settle on a single application -- everyone had favorites they wouldn't give up.
Good luck.
Yep, I knew I should have said "~$1M" instead of "$10K" mere nanoseconds after hitting reply. Doh.
Nonetheless, Google isn't just giving me the "oh, how altruistic" feeling. I openly applaud them in this, but I still see how they gain from it, too. I'm not saying gain is bad, being Slashdot's King of Profit.
Having everyone work on the same problem is far more profitable now that you have differing results tending to the same problem. You can invest in seeking new attacks on issues you already consider solved.
It doesn't surprise me that Google continues to increase Brain Drain in other big IT-focused companies (Microsoft, etc).
Google seems to realize that information is the most valuable commodity now and in the future. While most companies fight to contain their hold of old information, Google invests in new ways to sort and distribute the information others have created.
Programming is the real weapon of the war to produce information and sort it. By enabling programmers to compete, for profit, Google finds a huge new resource: ideas. What will the next information gathering or sorting device be? Hiring 15,000 people would cost millions. Forcing them to compete cost $10k.
Unfortunately, this is counter-productivity for most folk here. 15000 people just worked for free, and Google reaped the short term benefits. It'll be interesting to see how Google utilizes the optimized routines of non-winners, if they're allowed to.
Engines of God (Hutch vol 1) also talks about it.
I agree about Mcdevitt, although I've re-read the series once or twice. Infinity Beach is by far my favorite mystery of his.
His release timing of his Hutch books is perfect, though. Just long enough to reinvigorate interest and introduce more readers. Plus for an OLD author, he's very well connected to fans online.
Right, but instead of live theater, its mocap'd 3D characters with mapped 3D photos of audience members and their voices.
RHPS was fun, though.
OT pondering instilled by TFA...
//OT
In Jack McDevitt's Hutch series of books, the passengers on intersolar flights passed thetime by "starring" in movies digitally redone with the passengers as the characters.
I was thinking about how hilarious this would be in real life, and how it could reinvigorate certain movies in theaters with minimal seating if they had decent hardware to sample random audience members (one person per group). I realized a fisheye lens can capture deptch with the right software.
Imagine how "cool" it would be to revisit Indy Jones or Star Wars or Usual Suspects where someone in your group was one of the actors? Even a bit part would lead to great inside jokes, and meeting up with new groups would be easy, too.
I'd spend $20/ticket for the social experience.
FYI, the Pocket PC keyboard uses word completion that I'm very comfortable with. I just typed the following words with just 3-4 keystrokes each:
pocket
keyboard
completion
comfortable
Also, after using the auto-completed word, it automatically adds a space.
Ok, maybe not 90% but I know from experience that I'm hella fast on the OSK. I've been typing for nearly 28 years, so habit is habit.
For the past year, 99% of my data needs have been met with my HP iPAQ h6315 PDA Phone.
All my
My news, weather, e-mail, VNC, ftp, Excel and Word apps are perfect -- no bloat.
My home TV-PC-PVR gets its e-program guide via Bluetooth to my phone to the net. No DSL needed.
When I'm at a customer's office, my WiFi kicks in, automatically.
I write articles, use the built in camera (VGA res only) every day, and even use GPS with it.
No more laptop, desktop or server anywhere. My home TV-PC is nothing but a Tivo made my way. No Internet or office apps.
FWIW, I type with my cokehead-style thumbnail on screen faster than 90% of people with normal keyboards.
Good post.
, it is much more likely that it will be compromised if I leave it on a network server out there where any would-be spammer or identity thief can bribe underpaid sysadmins to give them a copy. Very. Strong. Encryption.
No one is going to host several hundred gigs of data for me for free. Neither do you. Cost of drive + labor + electricity + backups. Plus, how many hard drives out there have wasted, unused space? IMHO, shared storage will be much cheaper per gig for the average user.
What happens to your data and your privacy terms when your hosting service is acquired by a larger company with less scruples? What happens when a bank gets acquired? What happens when a car dealer runs a credit check on you? Both don't seem to worry you.
Also, more competition does not mean razor thin margins. It can mean better service, more features and/or lower pricing.
Just like retail is facing a death march, so is the PC, the TV, the phone, the iPod, the DVD player, the cable box, the newspaper, and so much more.
Convergence is not coming, its here. Its only going to get "worse."
Wireless broadband everywhere is just around the corner. Why store data on a PC or a LAN at all? Constant repair/upgrade/update/crash concerns. When 2Mbps wireless is truly a commodity, change will be imminent.
What data do YOU store? How about the average household? MP3? Movies on DVD? Thesis? Magazines in a bin for the past 3 years? Family photo albums? No, they won't disappear, not immediately.
Once that 2Mbps wireless is that commodity, data warehouses will be, too. No more backup concerns, no hardware-go-booms, no constant PC replacements. Just rent the space as you need it. Need more power? Its there.
Software rental (client-server thin networks) will be the next step. It will happen. No patching, no $250/year license for Ofiice 2006, no virus concerns, just pay-as-you-go. IT consultants beware.
The new TVs are just 1024x768 plasmas or LCDs. A $50 set-top box transcieves to Internet2. Your PDA will have the same access to your data as your home dumb terminal and office dumb terminal. All your contacts, movies, songs, personal and business data.
Why even buy music or movies? Pay-per-play!
Privacy? Few care. DRM? They're working on it for this future, not for piracy today.
I know. The LRC has "taken in" most of my favorite writers, bloggers and Op-Editors. Few of these folk share the same ideas, but the site is now the main container of AnCap/Austrian/Paleolib writings.
:)
That makes it difficult to provide other sites. I'm working on it -- Wiki has become a good source, but I've found a few others.
I write solely from my PDA, making it very difficult to access many sources, too. It's also hard just to link, but if I don't I have to type more than possible from the on screen keyboard
Thanks for the comment. I'm not here to sway opinion or convince anyone that I'm "right," just trying to offer more non-noise.
The Interstate Commerce Clause has been grossly abused:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory40.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/powell-jim3.html
The federal government was only meant to put checks on the States to make sure they didn't prevent interstate commerce by imposing tariffs or embargos on each other. Bad FDR, Taft, and Lincoln.
The AnCap side of me agrees that regulations at any level is ridiculous. But I'm no Utopian.. The federalist paleolib side of me realizes total freedom is going to take social evolution. The Constitution allots this regulation to the States and the People. I can only hope that states differ in all regulations based on what the people expect.
Money == Power by my definition of both, yes. Money is not bad power.
Any individual that can do a bad act legally is either in government or is licensed by government to perform that bad act, legally. Remove government's unlimited power to do bad, restrain government to strictly enforce contracts and punish bad acts, and you'll see FAR fewer bad acts.
If government wasn't spending trillions on restricting freedom, those trillions would be in our economy, raising wages, building businesses, helping charities and spreading wealth.
Big business is only "bad" through regulations that create monopolies and restrict competition.
This should be enforced by the individual States, who can decide how far they want to go, based on their constituents' beliefs.
I watched it once, it was too alien to me.
Synapsis: This head alien interrogates others like it regarding its numerous abuses by Man. Freaky episodes about the aliens' fashion, body morphing in their latter life stage, even discussions about how they can get their alien race to win the Presidency.
Eerie.
Just noticed this reply, oops.
Money is the universal exchange mechanism for conventional power.
Not true! Money is nothing but a medium for exchange and has nothing to do with power.
First, money was a creation to aid in bartering in large groups. Money IS time stored. You give me product X, I give you a neutral item called money that is just a storage of time savings redeemable in the future.
After pondering my initial comment, I realized the source of confusion. To me money = speech as the redemption of money is a form of expression. I am exchanging this money I received in the past (for saving someone else time) today to save me time. That exchange is expressing my desire to save myself time by using someone else's product or service. Hence money is merely a "Tivo" for my time.
Now, power is merely the ability of someone to perform a task. Power is not bad. The task a person can perform is only bad when it harms another person's ability to perform a task they want to do. Kill a person, they can't perform any task anymore. Steal from a person, they have to perform the task of work to replace that item, instead of the task of resting and using the item.
But government has a unique monopoly of being allowed to perform bad tasks legally. They can kill someone, take their items, or force them to perform tasks they don't want to. This power is bad.
If someone has stored a lot future time (money), they can save a lot of current time by giving that stored future time to this person who has the ability to force others to work NOW to give the original person their time savings. This is bad.
In essence, money is never bad. Power is not bad, either. Only certain tasks are bad, if they harm another's ability to perform the tasks they desire. Only government can do bad legally.
The RIAA believes it has a right to control who listens to music they've been licensed to distribute. Every format has been prone to piracy. To control the music means controlling the media and player.
Why not dump CDs and iTMS and set up private listening booths in every town. Force the listener to undress completely (no recording devices), charge them based on demand of listening booth use, profit!!
Or or or!!
MLM-style music. Sell a given song to 5 people at $1M a pop. Let them resell to their downline of 5 people at $250K each, and the downline sells it to their downline of 5 people at $55K each, and so on. Everyone makes 10% profit (plus sales help books and conference fees)! If you catch anyone listening to the song illegally, you can enforce your property rights directly.
Next week, Carlito's Way: Rise to Power hits DVD shelves and theaters.
Just because criminals would continue to engage in an activity if it was made illegal, doesn't mean there' no benefit to be gaining from changing the law.
Good point, I'll amend:
First, I define criminal by saying "A criminal is an individual who violates nother individual's property or body without consent, or violates a contract." With my definition, rape, murder, theft and breached contracts are crimes. I'll accept a government that enforces these rules.
Wal Mart wants your land. Today, they contribute to a candidate in favor of eminent domain. Your property would be violated, so the power to take it is unjust. Cancel eminent domain, now Wal Mart won't bribe the politician (legally or illegally) to take your property.
Mike Brown owns a pool business. He could advertise and hope private citizens would hire him. Or he could donate to some board members who would createba public pool. They tax you to build a pool, Mike profits greatly. How would the economy be helped if you spent those tax dollars robbed from you?
Government can do just fine limiting themselves to just the crimes I noted, not building pools, stealing properties or enabling cronies.
why did the soldiers kill the 50,000 innocents? They were given the command by those with power.
Were they paid by the government? Tax dollars stolen from people who would have used the money to drive the economy, not to murder.
Were they supplied guns and weapons paid for by the government? Weapons built by cronies of those in power, paid from stolen funds (taxation and inflation).
Soldiers derive their power from the money that supports them, not the other way around. The money came from the power to tax, using "legal" force to derive that power.
The money followed the power.
Remove the power to tax and inflate and use force offensively. The money won't flow in that direction.
Money follows power, not vice versa.
If 50,000 wealthy citizens kill 50,000 innocents, how many will get caught? Even 1 in 3 is bad odds, why risk it?
If 50,000 soldiers kill 50,000 innocents, no one holds blame. Government monopoly on force.
If Wal-Mart spends $1M to get an all powerful law passed in their favor, no one thinks twice. If that law was illegal, Wal Mart would spend that $1M competitively. Throwing money at government is cheaper and more likely to work since government has the power to make preferential laws. If they didn't have such ill power, businesses would use the money to compete, not control.
What a person in power does in private is hard to track. Bribes aren't in the public record.
What a person in power does in law creation is easily tracked.
Restrict the money and it'll happen through bribery. Restrict the power, and bad laws can't pass.
There was no typo. I meant what I said.
Money can not corrupt. Only power can.
Money + Power = Tyranny
Money + No_Power = Nothing
You all who call me naive and blind should re-assess your beliefs.
When Congress and the Senate were restrained, government was peaceful and small. Even up until 1913 government used only 8% of our wealth, and we as a country flourished. Money can not be a creator of evil, but government's monopoly over the use of force is.
Restrict the power and the donated money will dwindle.