Wikipedia, at least the version in portuguese, has very biased entries in regards to socio-political themes. For instance, the what it says about "marxismo" or "neo-liberalismo", etc. It is sad, as I guess most of the people who have the time and inclination to work on wikipedia (in Brazil) is left leaning (or left-radical, the type who is blind and aggressive to disagreement) and thus it distorts it completely, intelectually.
See, I could spend my time fixing a few of the entries, but frankly I don't want to make my life's role to be watching something being changed and changed back, especially when I know I am outnumbered. So instead of fixing the world (or fixing Wikipedia) I decided to... write a blog!
There are three good reasons to write blogs instead of contributing to Wikipedia: (a) not being anonymous, thus getting some recognition; (b) Being able to cut across subjects, making a text that can join, for instance, history, etymology and political commentary, all together; and (last but not least) (c) Present a coherent and crisp point of view on a theme, instead of a luke-warm, committee designed, reflection of the average text.
Personally I am happy with the path I took, since I can see how many people read everyday the definition (with an edge) that I give to certain topics. Particularly I am proud that overtime googled moved my blog to the first page of results to the query "o que é o poder?" ("What is Power", in portuguese) -- so I get my counterpoint to the wikipedia crowd.
As for knowing what to trust... I sincerely hope the "non-anonymous", "I stand for my ideas" and "I am a reputable thinker" model will prevail, or at least put in check, the Wikipedia faceless machine. As it has been for the past centuries, in the book business.
Yes, yes. We have had such an idea considered/discussed here in Brazil since a Professor wrote an article at a major newspaper about it. His name is Marcos Cintra, here is his web site (in portuguese): http://www.marcoscintra.org/iut/index.asp
Anyway, his proposition was: substitute all taxes for one single tax, to be charged as a small percentage of all electronic financial transactions. He calculated how small the percentage would be, and defended it on the grounds of being easy to collect, harder to evade, and applied over a much wider collection base.
What came out of it? The government implemented it, called "CPMF", acronym for Provisory Contribution over Financial Movements. It was 0,38% of all money transfers (credit, debit, wire transfers, anything) between two different persons, between a person and a company, or between two different companies. Even when transferring money to an investment fund (a different legal entity) this would be charged. It was promptly implemented by the banks and it worked (as expected) flawlessly, generating billions in tax revenues to the government.
The only catch is: being the government as it is, they implemented that idea but did not bring down the others (!). So the government broke the key premise of simplifying the taxes, and instead used this collection method to *add* taxes.
CPMF, the "provisory" (temporary) contribution lasted for ten years, but came down a few months ago (a major defeat to the government, a victory to the opposition).
I don't know if you can trust *your* government not to get greedy, and hold on to the old taxes as it brings on the new. But I know what happened down here.
As population continues to increase, the hectares of land devoted per person for food production will continue to shrink.
Food, or land for growing it, will not be the upper bound for population. Think about the ocean, think about the underground and vegetation growing under lamps. Using the "harder to use" or less hospitable food growing areas will take a lot of work or, more precisely, energy. Energy sources could provide a boundary, but from the atom or from the sun we should have plenty of energy. Infinte? No, of course. But large enough to be roughly equivalent to infinite.
Also, as you indicated, there are different ways to feed a person, Meat being less environmently efficient. But the ultimate efficiency comes from not eating. I mean, it is possible to survive having nutrients directly delivered to the blood. This is even more efficient than a fully veggie diet. Personally I think it abominable. But I am sure once humanity reaches a food limit, if we ever do, then choosing between "feeding without eating" and "dying" will be the fork on the road.
Me, I think the the size of the future population will be much more determined by culture, or the collective state of mind, as when people stop being interested in having kids. Though as a Darwinist I think the ones interested in having kids will tend to outbreed the others (logically) and dominate, so we should not expect population to dwindle because "nobody cares".
I think to myself whether there's not a "cover the ground with patents" strategy out there, when people start to cover abstract concepts and ideas like that. I mean, suppose you think about something that could be done, not the how, really, but the product, the result. You just go ahead and patent it. One day, someone creative, resourceful will be able to implement it and -- there -- you pull your patent out of the drawer!
It looks like the race to register domains names. People were registering scores of short words not because they knew what to do with it, but simply because they thought in the future someone would know.
And if that strategy does exist, how about some brainstorming to come up with a number of patented concepts which we cannot implement yet (or haven't)? Perhaps:
Battery operated, microchip controlled, geo-located self-guided electric helicopter for small package delivery, point-to-point, with or without recharging stations to allow for long-distance ranges;
Body-implanted digital assistant with low-radiation tele-communication capabilities and direct interface with the body's neural pathways, offering capabilities which include, but are not limited to, mathematical calculations, random access database, exchange of messages (vocal or textual) with remote hosts or peers and entertainment;
360 degrees angle-of-capture wearable movie-recorder camera system, with a redundant array of low-cost capture devices around the wearer's body and software to transform the input from the various mics and lenses into a clear 360 degrees projection of the environment visited and/or interacted with.
I opened up Word 2007. Typed in a URL. Right clicked, selected "Open Hyperlink" and you know what?
It opened in Firefox. Once again, Slashdot hasn't verified the info they decide to publish. Perhaps it opens IE for some people - I'm using Vista, so maybe the URL handler has a subtle difference to XP. In any case, the article is still flawed.
But is the article really flawed? Tell us, did you check what the info published was about, "clicking advertising links in Office will bring up Internet Explorer"?
This is what I did: I opened up Word 2000. I chose the "Help"-"About..." menu item. I clicked on the "Technical Support" button. A help window came up, containing a link to an online support site. I clicked that link. It took me to a microsoft site, full of ads. Up until this point it was not clear whether I was looking at a web site through Firefox (my default browser) or through IE7. Then I clicked on the MS Advertisement for "Microsoft Silverlight". Behold! IE7 opened the page... even though my Firefox is my default browser!
When I tried what you did, which is opening up links embedded in a Word document, I had the same result as you. But then again, the phrase you are picking on talked about advertising links, not embedded links.
Mr. Gates, Microsoft's largest shareholder, has said that Google is the company that most reminds him of Microsoft in terms of its broad ambitions and demanding corporate culture.
its things like these... that lead me to become an atheist...
Oh, please, don't fool yourself. This has nothing to do with it. If you really believed that god existed and was real, as a fact, then it would not be this "religion did a bad thing" fact that would drive you away from deism. I am an atheist myself, but let me tell you, it is not an utilitarian thing, like "the world works better with atheism". No, not at all. I am an atheism because it is the only belief compatible with all the facts that I know about the world, the only world view which does not fall into contradictions or incoherences. And perhaps that happens because atheism, contrary to deistic religions, doesn't say an awful lot about the world -- in fact it is most important for what it doesn't say!
What are you? Latin American? You sound like one. I have been raised in the opposite system to what you describe.
In the US the media is dominated by corporations, whose majority-stake owners are capitalists, and their hegemony reaches to everything - schools, churches, the current major political parties, even the currently existing unions.
In Brazil/Latin America the marxist left has been dominating for decades, starting no later than the sixties, the schools, churches, major political parties, even the currently existing unions. I went to a catholic school. Virtually all the priests and their support staff were marxist socialists (openly or tacitly). History teachers, geography teachers, everyone was preaching the same mantra as you: "We are poor because they are rich", "The rich exploit the working poor" and, the religious seed of it all, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God".
You know where that sort of reasoning and preaching brought us to? To the despisement of achievement, to the passiveness of "its not my fault" and to the outsourcing of responsibility. "Capitalism pins me down" while "it's my right and the government's duty" to have this, and that. And, worse, MUCH WORSE than these psychological trappings, ramblings like yours instills in people this foolish notion that someone, somehow, is going to come, floating above all the sins and wrongdoings of "normal people" (capitalists, proletariat, etc) and govern the system with justice, wisdom and no self interest.
Adam Smith? David Ricardo? Please, quit mentioning them while all you are thinking about is Karl Marx and his paranoid, theatrical description of everything in the world as a "class struggle". If you like to subscribe to conspiracy theories, why not go hard core? If you like dead economists please try a little von Mises: "The advocates of interventionism pretend to substitute for the -- as they assert, 'socially' detrimental -- effects of private property and vested interests the unlimited discretion of the perfectly wise and disinterested legislator and his conscientious and indefatigable servants, the bureaucrats. (...) In the world of the anticapitalists only those on the government's payroll are rated as unselfish and noble."
It is a matter of fact that policies by richer nations are hurting Latin America, Africa, and other poorer regions. I talk about the ridiculous, scandalous agricultural subsidies both in the US and Europe. And I also can't forget the guilt of the "Washington Consensus", as described by Stiglitz. But that should not cloud our view of the situation so much as to believe capitalism has a better alternative today.
First my father bought (what else) Pong, here in Brazil called "Telejogo Philips". I remember the exact year, because it was the year of the World Cup in Spain: 1982. I was 11. I don't remember how it actually got bought, whether new or used, or why on earth my father decided it was good that we should have it (since he himself never played).
The exact next year I got a Sinclair ZX81, instead of the Atari 2600 I craved for. Wisest decision from my father, since it caused me to learn to program!
Eventually I got my Atari 2600 by writing letters to a chewing gum company ("PLOC") which had a promotion "Come up with the next slogan for PLOC Chewing Gum". The phrase that got me the Atari was: "Se PLOC desse em árvore: Me Tarzan, You Jane" ("If PLOC grew in trees: Me Tarzan, You Jane"). Those were the days...
...add hardware that disables half of them, then manufacture the chip with all N cores and sell it for less, even though it actually costs more to design/build because of the added hardware to cripple it...
The cost perspective will never make it look sensible. Costs mean little without association with revenues. The real question is: will the additional revenue of selling these extra cores on CPUs already installed compensate the extra cost of manufacturing the extra cores + crippling circuits on all basic CPUs?
Thus, if XC% is % of extra cores sold over basic setup, the issue is whether XC% * PriceXC > (CostCripXC-CostBasic)
Now, you may have a problem with the producer being able to make more money this way. However ponder that the potential of extra revenues down the line may make the producer willing to sell the Basic CPU cheaper than it would otherwise, thus benefitting consumers who never needed the extra cores in the first place. This would be a mechanism not totally unlike the printer/inkjet cartridge cycle.
I tend to think that we are not living in a closed system; that there are a LOT of outside forces at work...
To say that we are not living in a closed system because "there are a LOT of outside forces at work " sounds very illogical. I mean, if there are forces outside of your first system boundary, please extend the boundary to include these outside forces (why shouldn't you?). Keep doing this until there are no outside forces. There, then, you have the correct system boundary. And you will see that we do live in a closed system.
This is akin to the odd "natural" vs "supernatural" distinction. The existence of the supernatural is entirely dependent on what you define as natural. Define natural as "everything there is" (why shouldn't you?), and there is no "supernatural". There's only what is (exists) and what isn't (doesn't exist). Thus "supernatural" is an arbitrary, meaningless word -- which people work out as either "can't be proved" or "doesn't exist", depending on the inclination. The term "outside forces at work" is, likewise, senseless.
I don't mean to hammer on you personally either. I just wanted to make a point about the belief that there is a logic for forces that both exist and are "outside the system (of existing things)." And no matter what it sounds like, I am not saying I agree with TFA's evolutionary hypothesis.
P.S. I was curious enough to do a Google search on the term "Socratic nonsense logic". It came back with zero pages.
...or is it a subtle signal to people who are considering whether or not to move forward in the versions-ladder? Remember that they just disconnected functioning code in a perfectly stable version. It might have taken them *less* work to keep it in than to take it out. It would certainly save some of their users a lot of work.
It seems to me that parsers to older file formats are done once developed. Unless one wants to improve them, support that last unmapped table format, there is no reason not to keep them as they are. The parser code needn't necessarily change because new formats came up. It can just cascade. If you had a parser to move from Word 5.0 to Word 97 and you then introduce Word XP, just chain them:
ParserWordXP ( ParserWord97 (Word5.0.doc))
Since most modern formats are (generally) supersets of the older formats, this will not cause excessive trouble.
Having teenager, on the other hand, shows you the difficulty (futility?) of trying to give wisdom to those who lack experience.
You could make it more general. Having experience shows you the difficulty (futility) of trying to give wisdom to those who lack wisdom, be they experienced or not.
That's why hierarchies and chains of command are so crucial in any society. And hierarchies better have some very good selection mechanism for wise people, because the unwise are utterly unaware of their lack of wisdom.
Sequential programming is essentially a gigantic looped together tangle of If/Then statements. (ya know, I did have a feeling programs were messy under the hood -- thanks for confirming)
The basics of sequential programming are all object oriented. (of course, giant looped tangles of object oriented if/then's)
Well in games with so many options, the IF/THEN list becomes so long it becomes scrambled. Several calls to previous points in the list are made and the whole thing gets disorganized, something which programmers affectionately call "Spaghetti Code." (Object oriented spaghetti, like a tipped over plate on the carpet)
Procedural programming doesn 't use "things" as the basic building block of a program, but instead "actions." (I get it, sequential objects are dead like a row of peebles, and action procedures bring life, like turning the peebles into a school of fish!)
The interesting thing about procedural programming: modularity. (modularity, brilliant! I bet they wish they had thought of that when they created object oriented programming)
Of course, if you don't take exeternalities/subsides into account, you can get fuels that are economicaly viable and not energy positive, otherwise that is impossible.
In the sentence above "otherwise that is impossible" means "if you do take externalities/subsidies into account, getting fuels that are economically viable and not energy positive is impossible".
That is precisely what I was trying to say with "Energy Positive ~= economically viable" -- nothing more, nothing less.
The main factor determining the economic viability of a product is how much labor it takes.
Not quite. This thinking is the theoretical basis of the Marxist school of thought, which drew from the "Labor Theory of Value" written up by David Ricardo (see here). But it is essentially a flawed point of view -- and has been superseded by the Marginal Utility Theory of Value. The shortest rebutal I know to the Labor Theory of Value/Marxist view is this: "Pearls are not valuable because people dive for them, people dive for them because pearls are valuable".
The main factor determining the energy return of a product is how much fuel it takes. See the discrepancy?
Well from your own point of view one would think any amount of fuel it takes could be translated in "amount of labor to create/extract that fuel", so there would be no discrepancy at all, right ?
In practice if one really could eliminate all subsidies/tax distortions *and* account for externalities (such as pollution) *and* assume a fairly competitive market (all three very hard to meet conditions, of course) *then* Energy Positive ~= economically viable.
PLUS SIDE #1 Then there could be a system in which fans of a work could pool capital in order to buy and release it in the public domain.
PLUS SIDE #2 Government could direct the funds collected to annually programs which would produce new artists and works, or make more of the older ones available.
MINUS SIDE #1 There could be collectors, or speculators, which buy the rights only in hopes of reselling it later, and neither publishing them nor releasing it in the public domain.
MINUS SIDE #2 A consumer goods company could buy an older copyrighted item and use it as part of its brand strategy. For example, buying a classic comics character and using it as its brand. Or, more perversely, "spending it" as its brand.
MINUS SIDE #3 As it would pretty much be a tax on copyrighted works, copies of copyrighted works might start to cost more (even as non-copyrighted works cost less).
I used to say that the difference between my country and the United States was that here everything was prohibited unless expressely allowed, while in the US everything was allowed unless expressely prohibited.
I like your enthusiasm, but think about it for a second: How could Linux ever support more Windows games than Windows?
Well, just this weekend I tried to install "Shogun Total War" (original CDs, bought off bargain bin) on my Windows XP machine, and it didn't run. I went online and found out that this title, which was released for Win95, had compatibility problems with WinXP. It didn't work with "Win95 compatibility mode", either. There's room for Linux to exceed WinXP/Vista.
Even if they got bought out instead of going under, it's not because business was great that they accepted the buyout offer.
Well, you don't have to have a bad business in order to accept a buy out offer. Think of sinergy like this:
Company A is developing DiseaseX cure. Company B is developing DiseaseX cure.
Each is throwing $ into research. The first that makes the break and finds the cure makes $$$. It makes sense because 50%($$$)+50%(zero) > $ (assume each has a 50% chance of being the first to find the cure).
However, if A and B merge one of the research lines can be aborted (or "merged", saving $) and the risk of not being the first becomes zero (meaning the merged A&B has 100% chance of being the first to find the cure). Lower cost, lower risk. And we are not even talking about the other sinergies in Production, Commercial & Administrative expenses, etc.
I understand this angle you and many others are showing.
However, I wanted to point out that from the point of view of the guy who is dying, all these long term considerations are pointless. In the long term we are dead, remarked Keynes, and for a terminal patient the long term could come very shortly. So, what will happen tomorrow with the wine and the raisins and all doesn't matter -- unless one finds a way to live until tomorrow.
I am not even talking about Brazil, I am talking about individuals. I wish I could draw and put it graphically here, but if you have seen it once you can certainly picture a supply and demand curve, where, as we know, the lower the price the more units get sold. From the point of view of the monopolist (and patented drugs are monopolies) the profit maximizing price is much higher than what would serve all potential users of the product. That's how the industry thinks about it -- profit maximizing. Only that every time they leave part of the demand curve (to the right of the Quantity sold versus the profit maximizing price) without the product, they are contributing to the death of someone. Or, if you think this conclusion is too harsh, they are either shortening the life or causing pain and suffering for someone.
It is quite easy to be cool about it and take the long term view, as long as one is not in the position of the guy to the right of the demand curve. It could be an american citizen without a health plan, a brazilian, or a south african. If you have aids and can't afford to pay the (arbitrary, profit maximizing) toll that you are being charged to live, you couldn't care less about the long term.
How do you balance this: The certain suffering of a poor person today vs the possible treatment of a rich individual tomorrow ?
Two people in a prison cell, me and you. In one hour the prison guard will come in and ask each of us for a password. No password means immediate execution. I have the password. You don't. It is in a carboard box I have in the cell. You could look inside, but I tell you not to touch the box... because it's my box. Half an hour goes by, and you can't convince me to let you look inside the box. In 30 more minutes the guard will come. What would you consider doing ? And would you think I was being reasonable ?
Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia, at least the version in portuguese, has very biased entries in regards to socio-political themes. For instance, the what it says about "marxismo" or "neo-liberalismo", etc. It is sad, as I guess most of the people who have the time and inclination to work on wikipedia (in Brazil) is left leaning (or left-radical, the type who is blind and aggressive to disagreement) and thus it distorts it completely, intelectually.
See, I could spend my time fixing a few of the entries, but frankly I don't want to make my life's role to be watching something being changed and changed back, especially when I know I am outnumbered. So instead of fixing the world (or fixing Wikipedia) I decided to... write a blog!
There are three good reasons to write blogs instead of contributing to Wikipedia: (a) not being anonymous, thus getting some recognition; (b) Being able to cut across subjects, making a text that can join, for instance, history, etymology and political commentary, all together; and (last but not least) (c) Present a coherent and crisp point of view on a theme, instead of a luke-warm, committee designed, reflection of the average text.
Personally I am happy with the path I took, since I can see how many people read everyday the definition (with an edge) that I give to certain topics. Particularly I am proud that overtime googled moved my blog to the first page of results to the query "o que é o poder?" ("What is Power", in portuguese) -- so I get my counterpoint to the wikipedia crowd.
As for knowing what to trust... I sincerely hope the "non-anonymous", "I stand for my ideas" and "I am a reputable thinker" model will prevail, or at least put in check, the Wikipedia faceless machine. As it has been for the past centuries, in the book business.
Yes, yes. We have had such an idea considered/discussed here in Brazil since a Professor wrote an article at a major newspaper about it. His name is Marcos Cintra, here is his web site (in portuguese): http://www.marcoscintra.org/iut/index.asp
Anyway, his proposition was: substitute all taxes for one single tax, to be charged as a small percentage of all electronic financial transactions. He calculated how small the percentage would be, and defended it on the grounds of being easy to collect, harder to evade, and applied over a much wider collection base.
What came out of it? The government implemented it, called "CPMF", acronym for Provisory Contribution over Financial Movements. It was 0,38% of all money transfers (credit, debit, wire transfers, anything) between two different persons, between a person and a company, or between two different companies. Even when transferring money to an investment fund (a different legal entity) this would be charged. It was promptly implemented by the banks and it worked (as expected) flawlessly, generating billions in tax revenues to the government.
The only catch is: being the government as it is, they implemented that idea but did not bring down the others (!). So the government broke the key premise of simplifying the taxes, and instead used this collection method to *add* taxes.
CPMF, the "provisory" (temporary) contribution lasted for ten years, but came down a few months ago (a major defeat to the government, a victory to the opposition).
I don't know if you can trust *your* government not to get greedy, and hold on to the old taxes as it brings on the new. But I know what happened down here.
As population continues to increase, the hectares of land devoted per person for food production will continue to shrink.
Food, or land for growing it, will not be the upper bound for population. Think about the ocean, think about the underground and vegetation growing under lamps. Using the "harder to use" or less hospitable food growing areas will take a lot of work or, more precisely, energy. Energy sources could provide a boundary, but from the atom or from the sun we should have plenty of energy. Infinte? No, of course. But large enough to be roughly equivalent to infinite.
Also, as you indicated, there are different ways to feed a person, Meat being less environmently efficient. But the ultimate efficiency comes from not eating. I mean, it is possible to survive having nutrients directly delivered to the blood. This is even more efficient than a fully veggie diet. Personally I think it abominable. But I am sure once humanity reaches a food limit, if we ever do, then choosing between "feeding without eating" and "dying" will be the fork on the road.
Me, I think the the size of the future population will be much more determined by culture, or the collective state of mind, as when people stop being interested in having kids. Though as a Darwinist I think the ones interested in having kids will tend to outbreed the others (logically) and dominate, so we should not expect population to dwindle because "nobody cares".
It looks like the race to register domains names. People were registering scores of short words not because they knew what to do with it, but simply because they thought in the future someone would know.
And if that strategy does exist, how about some brainstorming to come up with a number of patented concepts which we cannot implement yet (or haven't)? Perhaps:
But is the article really flawed? Tell us, did you check what the info published was about, "clicking advertising links in Office will bring up Internet Explorer"?
This is what I did: I opened up Word 2000. I chose the "Help"-"About..." menu item. I clicked on the "Technical Support" button. A help window came up, containing a link to an online support site. I clicked that link. It took me to a microsoft site, full of ads. Up until this point it was not clear whether I was looking at a web site through Firefox (my default browser) or through IE7. Then I clicked on the MS Advertisement for "Microsoft Silverlight". Behold! IE7 opened the page... even though my Firefox is my default browser!
When I tried what you did, which is opening up links embedded in a Word document, I had the same result as you. But then again, the phrase you are picking on talked about advertising links, not embedded links.
Apparently you're the kind of person who would have done nothing when the Nazis...
And apparently you're just the kind of person who, without knowing Godwin's Law, proves it.
its things like these... that lead me to become an atheist...
Oh, please, don't fool yourself. This has nothing to do with it. If you really believed that god existed and was real, as a fact, then it would not be this "religion did a bad thing" fact that would drive you away from deism.
I am an atheist myself, but let me tell you, it is not an utilitarian thing, like "the world works better with atheism". No, not at all. I am an atheism because it is the only belief compatible with all the facts that I know about the world, the only world view which does not fall into contradictions or incoherences. And perhaps that happens because atheism, contrary to deistic religions, doesn't say an awful lot about the world -- in fact it is most important for what it doesn't say!
In Brazil/Latin America the marxist left has been dominating for decades, starting no later than the sixties, the schools, churches, major political parties, even the currently existing unions. I went to a catholic school. Virtually all the priests and their support staff were marxist socialists (openly or tacitly). History teachers, geography teachers, everyone was preaching the same mantra as you: "We are poor because they are rich", "The rich exploit the working poor" and, the religious seed of it all, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God".
You know where that sort of reasoning and preaching brought us to? To the despisement of achievement, to the passiveness of "its not my fault" and to the outsourcing of responsibility. "Capitalism pins me down" while "it's my right and the government's duty" to have this, and that. And, worse, MUCH WORSE than these psychological trappings, ramblings like yours instills in people this foolish notion that someone, somehow, is going to come, floating above all the sins and wrongdoings of "normal people" (capitalists, proletariat, etc) and govern the system with justice, wisdom and no self interest.
Adam Smith? David Ricardo? Please, quit mentioning them while all you are thinking about is Karl Marx and his paranoid, theatrical description of everything in the world as a "class struggle". If you like to subscribe to conspiracy theories, why not go hard core? If you like dead economists please try a little von Mises: "The advocates of interventionism pretend to substitute for the -- as they assert, 'socially' detrimental -- effects of private property and vested interests the unlimited discretion of the perfectly wise and disinterested legislator and his conscientious and indefatigable servants, the bureaucrats. (...) In the world of the anticapitalists only those on the government's payroll are rated as unselfish and noble."
It is a matter of fact that policies by richer nations are hurting Latin America, Africa, and other poorer regions. I talk about the ridiculous, scandalous agricultural subsidies both in the US and Europe. And I also can't forget the guilt of the "Washington Consensus", as described by Stiglitz. But that should not cloud our view of the situation so much as to believe capitalism has a better alternative today.
Wow. It's even here in Brazil! :-(
I'd rather have a TiVo, though
First my father bought (what else) Pong, here in Brazil called "Telejogo Philips". I remember the exact year, because it was the year of the World Cup in Spain: 1982. I was 11. I don't remember how it actually got bought, whether new or used, or why on earth my father decided it was good that we should have it (since he himself never played).
The exact next year I got a Sinclair ZX81, instead of the Atari 2600 I craved for. Wisest decision from my father, since it caused me to learn to program!
Eventually I got my Atari 2600 by writing letters to a chewing gum company ("PLOC") which had a promotion "Come up with the next slogan for PLOC Chewing Gum". The phrase that got me the Atari was: "Se PLOC desse em árvore: Me Tarzan, You Jane" ("If PLOC grew in trees: Me Tarzan, You Jane"). Those were the days...
...add hardware that disables half of them, then manufacture the chip with all N cores and sell it for less, even though it actually costs more to design/build because of the added hardware to cripple it...
The cost perspective will never make it look sensible. Costs mean little without association with revenues. The real question is: will the additional revenue of selling these extra cores on CPUs already installed compensate the extra cost of manufacturing the extra cores + crippling circuits on all basic CPUs?
Thus, if XC% is % of extra cores sold over basic setup, the issue is whether
XC% * PriceXC > (CostCripXC-CostBasic)
Now, you may have a problem with the producer being able to make more money this way. However ponder that the potential of extra revenues down the line may make the producer willing to sell the Basic CPU cheaper than it would otherwise, thus benefitting consumers who never needed the extra cores in the first place. This would be a mechanism not totally unlike the printer/inkjet cartridge cycle.
To say that we are not living in a closed system because "there are a LOT of outside forces at work " sounds very illogical. I mean, if there are forces outside of your first system boundary, please extend the boundary to include these outside forces (why shouldn't you?). Keep doing this until there are no outside forces. There, then, you have the correct system boundary. And you will see that we do live in a closed system.
This is akin to the odd "natural" vs "supernatural" distinction. The existence of the supernatural is entirely dependent on what you define as natural. Define natural as "everything there is" (why shouldn't you?), and there is no "supernatural". There's only what is (exists) and what isn't (doesn't exist). Thus "supernatural" is an arbitrary, meaningless word -- which people work out as either "can't be proved" or "doesn't exist", depending on the inclination. The term "outside forces at work" is, likewise, senseless.
I don't mean to hammer on you personally either. I just wanted to make a point about the belief that there is a logic for forces that both exist and are "outside the system (of existing things)." And no matter what it sounds like, I am not saying I agree with TFA's evolutionary hypothesis.
P.S. I was curious enough to do a Google search on the term "Socratic nonsense logic". It came back with zero pages.
It seems to me that parsers to older file formats are done once developed. Unless one wants to improve them, support that last unmapped table format, there is no reason not to keep them as they are. The parser code needn't necessarily change because new formats came up. It can just cascade. If you had a parser to move from Word 5.0 to Word 97 and you then introduce Word XP, just chain them:
Since most modern formats are (generally) supersets of the older formats, this will not cause excessive trouble.
You could make it more general. Having experience shows you the difficulty (futility) of trying to give wisdom to those who lack wisdom, be they experienced or not.
That's why hierarchies and chains of command are so crucial in any society. And hierarchies better have some very good selection mechanism for wise people, because the unwise are utterly unaware of their lack of wisdom.
Sequential programming is essentially a gigantic looped together tangle of If/Then statements.
(ya know, I did have a feeling programs were messy under the hood -- thanks for confirming)
The basics of sequential programming are all object oriented.
(of course, giant looped tangles of object oriented if/then's)
Well in games with so many options, the IF/THEN list becomes so long it becomes scrambled. Several calls to previous points in the list are made and the whole thing gets disorganized, something which programmers affectionately call "Spaghetti Code."
(Object oriented spaghetti, like a tipped over plate on the carpet)
Procedural programming doesn 't use "things" as the basic building block of a program, but instead "actions."
(I get it, sequential objects are dead like a row of peebles, and action procedures bring life, like turning the peebles into a school of fish!)
The interesting thing about procedural programming: modularity.
(modularity, brilliant! I bet they wish they had thought of that when they created object oriented programming)
A buddy of mine works as a cable contract installer. Makes good coin because he does such an incredibly shitty but quick job when he's on the clock.
I am trying to follow you but I am missing your solution to this issue.
What exactly would make your buddy *not* do a shitty job ? Why ?
That is precisely what I was trying to say with "Energy Positive ~= economically viable" -- nothing more, nothing less.
The main factor determining the economic viability of a product is how much labor it takes.
Not quite. This thinking is the theoretical basis of the Marxist school of thought, which drew from the "Labor Theory of Value" written up by David Ricardo (see here). But it is essentially a flawed point of view -- and has been superseded by the Marginal Utility Theory of Value. The shortest rebutal I know to the Labor Theory of Value/Marxist view is this: "Pearls are not valuable because people dive for them, people dive for them because pearls are valuable".
The main factor determining the energy return of a product is how much fuel it takes. See the discrepancy?
Well from your own point of view one would think any amount of fuel it takes could be translated in "amount of labor to create/extract that fuel", so there would be no discrepancy at all, right ?
In practice if one really could eliminate all subsidies/tax distortions *and* account for externalities (such as pollution) *and* assume a fairly competitive market (all three very hard to meet conditions, of course) *then* Energy Positive ~= economically viable.
Intriguing !
PLUS SIDE #1
Then there could be a system in which fans of
a work could pool capital in order to buy and
release it in the public domain.
PLUS SIDE #2
Government could direct the funds collected to annually
programs which would produce new artists and works,
or make more of the older ones available.
MINUS SIDE #1
There could be collectors, or speculators, which
buy the rights only in hopes of reselling it later,
and neither publishing them nor releasing it in the
public domain.
MINUS SIDE #2
A consumer goods company could buy an older
copyrighted item and use it as part of its
brand strategy. For example, buying a classic
comics character and using it as its brand.
Or, more perversely, "spending it" as its brand.
MINUS SIDE #3
As it would pretty much be a tax on copyrighted
works, copies of copyrighted works might start
to cost more (even as non-copyrighted works cost
less).
Just quick first thoughts...
I used to say that the difference between my country
and the United States was that here everything was
prohibited unless expressely allowed, while in the
US everything was allowed unless expressely prohibited.
I guess I will soon have to revise that saying.
I like your enthusiasm, but think about it for a second: How could Linux ever support more Windows games than Windows?
Well, just this weekend I tried to install "Shogun Total War" (original CDs, bought off bargain bin) on my Windows XP machine, and it didn't run. I went online and found out that this title, which was released for Win95, had compatibility problems with WinXP. It didn't work with "Win95 compatibility mode", either. There's room for Linux to exceed WinXP/Vista.
Even if they got bought out instead of going under, it's not because business was great that they accepted the buyout offer.
Well, you don't have to have a bad business in order to accept a buy out offer. Think of sinergy like this:
Company A is developing DiseaseX cure.
Company B is developing DiseaseX cure.
Each is throwing $ into research.
The first that makes the break and finds the cure makes $$$.
It makes sense because 50%($$$)+50%(zero) > $ (assume each has a 50% chance of being the first to find the cure).
However, if A and B merge one of the research lines can be aborted (or "merged", saving $) and the risk of not being the first becomes zero (meaning the merged A&B has 100% chance of being the first to find the cure). Lower cost, lower risk. And we are not even talking about the other sinergies in Production, Commercial & Administrative expenses, etc.
I understand this angle you and many others are showing.
However, I wanted to point out that from the point of view of the guy who is
dying, all these long term considerations are pointless. In the long term we are
dead, remarked Keynes, and for a terminal patient the long term could come very
shortly. So, what will happen tomorrow with the wine and the raisins and all
doesn't matter -- unless one finds a way to live until tomorrow.
I am not even talking about Brazil, I am talking about individuals. I wish I could draw and
put it graphically here, but if you have seen it once you can certainly picture a supply
and demand curve, where, as we know, the lower the price the more units get sold. From the
point of view of the monopolist (and patented drugs are monopolies) the profit maximizing
price is much higher than what would serve all potential users of the product. That's how
the industry thinks about it -- profit maximizing. Only that every time they leave part of the
demand curve (to the right of the Quantity sold versus the profit maximizing price) without
the product, they are contributing to the death of someone. Or, if you think this conclusion
is too harsh, they are either shortening the life or causing pain and suffering for someone.
It is quite easy to be cool about it and take the long term view, as long as one is not in
the position of the guy to the right of the demand curve. It could be an american citizen
without a health plan, a brazilian, or a south african. If you have aids and can't afford
to pay the (arbitrary, profit maximizing) toll that you are being charged to live, you
couldn't care less about the long term.
How do you balance this: The certain suffering of a poor person today vs the possible
treatment of a rich individual tomorrow ?
Two people in a prison cell, me and you. In one hour the prison guard will come in and ask each of us for a password. No password means immediate execution. I have the password. You don't. It is in a carboard box I have in the cell. You could look inside, but I tell you not to touch the box... because it's my box. Half an hour goes by, and you can't convince me to let you look inside the box. In 30 more minutes the guard will come. What would you consider doing ? And would you think I was being reasonable ?