Yes, but that's directly contrary to Christianity. You see, when I take communion, and eat of the Body of Christ, I accept that what happened to Him also will happen to His Body (the Church) and to me (as a member of His body).
What that means, then, is that I don't sacrifice my sheep to the wolves, in order to avoid being eaten myself. Rather, I sacrifice myself for my sheep, if need be. That said, I'd rather that it need not be.
Now, I moved out to Lithuania in order to lower my costs, and get cheaper labor. But I'm not going to pay them slave labor rates. We have 1 partner, 1 employee. The partner is in this for the long term, the employee is not, so I'll talk about the employee. He had been out of work for 6 months at least, taking brick-parking-lot laying jobs, at about 35% of the wage that we hired him for. That said, the wage we hired him for was a low livable wage. It was not good; it was acceptable. Since his wife did have a job selling bread at a kiosk, they were able to make ends meet, but it wasn't a family wage. In reality, you need a family wage to raise a family.
He's moving to Germany -- they'll be on welfare at first, but he prefers to work, and I hope he gets a job quickly.
So very soon, I'll be going down, and asking for $100k. I'm going to make every case in the book why we deserve it, and why we need it. If we get it, that's great. If we don't, fine -- but I'm not going to continue even that "not-good" level of pay. Nor am I going to let my partner lose out. If they don't give us the $100k, *I* will be out.
Not that I'm coming empty handed. I have a book proposal almost ready, and if they want it, we can produce it. Every 2-volume book we produce makes them more than a million dollars, and that's one per year. This, if accepted, will increase their market share dramatically, too, especially in these difficult economic times.
Let me just give you an example. As the Roman empire progressed, the rank-and-file "citizen" disappeared, inside Rome, and the private landholder disappeared in outlying Rome.
Previous to that point, typically a young Roman would become a soldier, march, fight, and build roads for a time, and then would retire, recieving as his retirement a landstead in the territories, free and clear.
By doing things this way, you ended up getting a huge number of independent economic actors -- and economic actors who knew how to defend their property, as well.
Meanwhile, the dictators [within the Roman Republic] were dictators for 2 years, following which they were appointed with a lifetime appointment to be the governor of a territory. As a result, he had every interest in maintaining the economic integrity of his territory, and again you got lots of economic actors.
Now, when the Roman Empire began to decay, you had patricians who found that they could gain vast wealth by having land worked by slaves [not independent actors]. As a result, they pushed for control of the land, and got it. So instead of ex-soldiers working their own plot, you had slaves working a Roman Senator's plot.
But then the territories weren't strong; so they also began to appoint the governors, and the governors' main job was to extract all the taxes he could. Thus, again the economies got disrupted, and the number of free actors in the region again decreased.
This made Rome incredibly weak, and indeed the Republic fell, first to a slave revolt, and then later to Julius Caesar. That resulted in a contraction of the Roman Empire, and more intrigue within Rome, less without.
However, you still had consolidation of wealth ongoing, and the territories of the Germanic tribes weakening further. Also, in Egypt, you had the wealth [in this case, food production: Egypt was Rome's bread basket] consolidating into the hands of a few.
So by the time of the sack of Rome, you had Senators and slaves. What happened was pretty simple. The Huns attacked the germanic tribes, and beat the first one, claiming their land. Further, they issued a ruling: you beat the next tribe over, and you go free -- or you don't fight, and be our slaves. They thus propagated the effect straight through (note that they used independent actors as their army!), and drove the Germanic tribes out. So at that point, you had the current losers fighting the war for the Huns, and the former losers wandering around looking for food and work.
One of the Germanic tribes that was wandering around was the Vandals. They stopped in Northern Italy, and petitioned Rome for food. The Roman Senate, being compassionate if greedy, voted to give them food, and said "yes, come halfway down and stop, and we'll feed you." They then voted to give the contract for the work to a single Senator, who was expected to embezzle some of it, but get some food to the Vandals. He embezzled it all [Single economic actor, single mode of failure]. The Visigoths didn't stop. They swept through Rome, eating almost all the food. The slaves of the Senators (most of the Roman population) realized they were going to starve, and left with the Visigoths.
Subsequently, the Visigoths went all through Rome, looking for food, and getting useless gold and useful slaves instead. Thus, Rome was sacked.
.
The Bible is chock full of similar stories. Even if you don't believe it is mostly accurate, the stories are descriptive enough that you can see that more economic actors is better; and a gutting of the number of economic actors presages a fall.
I'm sorry. You didn't understand: that was $18k for all three of us PLUS taxes. Or, if you wish, average of $5000 per person per year.
But no, we are about as automated as we can afford to be at this point. Indeed, we're running on old equipment, old software, because we have to buy our own stuff there, too.
You know how advertisers outsource the advertising until it gets to spam, and the spammers are the bottom rung? Well, we're the bottom rung of textbook production, but there's only one rung above us, and we aren't going to make the step into evil, nor are we going to outsource or be able to outsource.
Fact is, also, we were profitable before and expecting to get more profitable as time went.
But our publisher got bought out by another publisher who assumed that they could simply reduce costs and take the extra as profit [wrong... ], who got bought out by another publisher thinking the same thing, and so one way or another we've gone from a top of $30,000 down to $18,000.
[BTW... when I say publisher, publishers are kindof like Bank + IP company. They don't do the work so much as outsource the work, and they are extremely profitable.]
It has to do more with the ratio of number of degrees of freedom for the entity (say, a country), versus the number of modes of failure, which is a function of the number of units involved. To have an advantage there, as your population grows you need exponential growth of the degrees of freedom, in order to match the exponential growth in the number of modes of failure.
I have no idea whether any economist has looked into this. I get this from bouncing thoughts and arguments back and forth with my brother, though he's more insightful than I am in economics.
As for historians, well, I guess you could say that we're amature historians, but again this isn't a career, so I've not done a lot of research into other people's work, except for published books, which essentially provide data.
So I can't give you a yes on either of those questions.
The way our laws are structured, the IPO goes to the investment houses. They get to buy at discount rates, and then sell the initial sales to their friends, who make 10-50% on the first day's rise.
If you want to invest in a company, you pretty much have to start one yourself. My advice, though, is that unless you want to donate a lot of time and free money to a bank, don't go the SB/SME route. Go with an incredible secret money machine. That is, start without capitalization, come up with a single product, expand your product line, reevaluate, and so on. Do it without external investment or loans.
First of all, let me point out that he isn't advocating taking money from corporations; he is advocating that communities circle the wagons, as is described in the book Hope's Edge.
I should note that I partially agree: Hope's Edge does give a reasonable economic response to out-of-control corporatism. Where the author Lappe is wrong is to place her hope in the response. I have a feeling that we may sink a good deal farther than even she imagines. If that happens, she'd better be hoping in God, not in her response, or she's going to despair and self-destruct.
But on to my point. Wealth isn't about distribution or creation. Wealth is about having a working economy. That is, true wealth is in the number of independent economic connections, per person. That is what gives resilience to an economy, or an attack, or a natural disaster.
Sometime, take a look at a timeline of ancient civilizations, showing the rise and fall of Empires [there's often one at the end of KJV bibles]. You'll notice that a lot of the empires grew by conquest, and then suddenly immediately fell, sometimes to almost nothing [Alexander the Great, for example]. You could graph these according to population, or according to income, or according to collected gold: in any case, you would see no obvious explanation for the sudden fall of this empire or that one.
However, if you graphed it according to the number of connections between independent economic units, you'll see that the countries are gutted before they fall. That is, for example, the government seizes the industries, or destroys them; or businessmen enslave their compatriots; or they find ways to withhold their workers' wages, thus destroying the economic infrastructure.
You'll find some apparent exceptions of course -- for example, the fall of Tyre to Alexander. However, even that isn't really an exception, because Tyre did not have a defense infrastructure. Rather, they depended for their defense upon their neighbors, and so when their neighbors got gutted, they got gutted too, and were ripe for a fall.
You can also see this in the stories of the Bible, and in the warnings by the prophets.
Now, I would argue that we are going about a mass destruction of our economy: that is, we are reducing the number of links between independent economic units, not increasing that number.
Now, this topic's author seems to see that putting people out of work is dangerous. I'd agree with that, though I don't really agree with his solutions.
But in the end, I don't think that we really have the power to make or break trends. We can make our own actions right, and in the end be able to say "I helped" or "I was part of the problem". But when the cards are down, I think that we'll just either have to have faith in God, and take our comfort from Him. In other words, Habbakuk.
What's also sad is that the corporations are much better at taking other people's wealth than creating their own.
Ultimately, no system is perfect, and imperfect systems eventually break down. As with your car, when they break down, people get hurt. Unlike with your car, the cause of the system breaking down is not that the people or companies are worn out, but that people don't care to follow God's laws.
Quite simply our system is breaking down, heavily. At such times, it's probably better to read Habbakuk, and understand it, and accept it. That way, you won't be a part of the problem, anyhow.
Oh, and if you *are* one of the wealthy who is trying to save up for a rainy day at cost to his workers... read James 5.
I'm involved in the process of wealth creation, but I'm quite possibly about to be kicked out.
You see, I produce physics study guides. I can document that we produce the best selling ancillaries. I can document that we saved the publisher ~100k - 200k dollars on this last book alone, through reduced print costs, brought about by our good job. I can document that we delivered 45 days ahead of schedule. But our pay sucks so badly ($18k for a year, for 3 workers) that our credit cards are ready to push through the roof. When that happens, our computers get sold, and the wealth creation process stops. In our case, yeah, we could have paid less to our workers, but even the amount we paid was low though standard here. So we picked the route of maxing out our credit cards instead, until the contract was finished. The wages we paid were not good, but they were the best we could do. The wages that were paid to us were clearly unjust, to the point of evil. But it can't continue, and won't; and I won't feed my sheep to the wolves -- better that we break.
So the first thing I'd say is, if you want to bring people back into the wealth creation process, how about letting them keep a bit of the wealth they create. Don't disconnect wealth creation from getting wealth.
And no, I'm not talking about taxes, in particular. Yeah, that can be part of it. I'm talking about economic justice to your neighbor, period, no matter who you are. That includes to your waitress (tips), to your newspaper boy, to the guy who mows your lawn, and so on. Look at home, and see what you're doing wrong yourself, and fix it.
For those of you who are Catholic [and went to Church], I'd point to James 5:1, from last Sunday.
Weep and mourn, you wealthy, at your impending miseries. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver is corrupted, and their rust shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as if it were fire. You have heaped treasure for the last days, but behold! the hire of the laborers who reaped your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cries out, and the cries of those who reaped it are heard by the Lord. You have lived in pleasure on the Earth, wantonly, and have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed the just, and he does not resist you."
Quite simply, if you're a company, than you have to compare the cost of using GPL to the cost of royalties paid out to proprietary systems.
If the cost of using the GPL [all the searches you mention] is less than the cost of the proprietary system, then you may want to use the GPL.
If it's more, you still have an option: don't distribute the binaries: use it in-house. For example, you could write your own program, and then create a JAVA web application that used your program for a fee.
Now, if you are a private individual, then there's another easy, cheap way to use the GPL: act in good faith to GPL your own product. Then, if someone discovers you didn't properly credit something that you're supposed to, since you're acting in good faith, they will to. They'll notify you "patch your source here...", and you will, and that'll be that.
On the other hand, I suspect that you may be trolling, in which case you just got one fish. Good job, except that trolling is ultimately a waste of your time, whereas my posting is informative, and helpful to others who see it, and therefore is not a waste of time.
Actually, if I had to guess, this bit about watching the oil pipeline is probably the driving factor. However, Nigeria's poverty problems are due to a combination of continual war, and unjust payment.
In a very real way, both of these problems are indicative but not proof of injustice by the oil companies. [This includes Chevron, one of Rockefeller's Standard Oil companies, but I'm not sure that Chevron is all it is.]
Point being, if Nigeria has had a huge poverty problem before, they'll likely have it afterwards, as well. Money typically gets spent at the behest of the powerful to make more money for the powerful.
So I really don't expect this to have benefits. But if it does, then I'm all for it.
In this, also, a,b,c, and d were coefficients. An alternative naming convention for the same coefficients, but generalized to functions f,g, and h were
a for function f is "cf(0)". That is, [c]oefficient for [f] number zero.
a for function g is "cg(0)". That is, [c]oefficient for [g] number 0.
b for function f is "cf(1)" that is, [c]oefficient for [f] number 1.
Okay, first of all, when you read that thing, know that IVP = "Initial Value Problem"; "ODE"=Ordinary Differential Equation.
Now, here goes: Suppose you have a function that is a taylor series: y=a + bt + ct^2 + dt^3...
Alternatively, I could write that y=cy(0)+cy(1)t^1 + cy(2)t^2 + cy(3)t^3... where cy(n) is the coefficient a,b,c,d...I'm going to switch back and forth a little, for convenience' sake.
Now, at time t=0, what is the value of y? y=a.
Suppose y measures position. At time t=0, what is the value of b? b is the initial velocity. That is because y'=b+2ct+3ct^2+4ct^3..., and at t=0, everything except b drops out. But the time derivitive of y is velocity. So b is equal to the initial velocity.
That's the concept of the Picard iteration: it's incredibly easy to deal with differentials if you have a Taylor series.
Let's stop here, and instead of calling the coefficients a,b,c,d... let's name them as mathematicians do: cy(0),cy(1),cy(2),cy(3)...
That is, coefficient for y #0, #1, #2, and so on.
Now, suppose I have three Taylor functions, f,g,and h, and I know two of them, and I have an equation f=g+h. How do I solve for g, for example, knowing f and h? Well, this one's easy from algebra. Each coefficient can be calculated from the relationship cf(n)=cg(n)+ch(n). So that one's easy. So is subtraction, same method, different sign.
Now multiplication is harder, and division is incredibly hard, and so that's kindof where Picard stopped. So it didn't seem all that useful to him. But Parker and Sochacki got it past that.
If we had f(t)=g(t)*h(t), well, for these to be functionally equivalent, then the coefficients for the g*h entries on the right should be equal to the coefficient for f, same power of t. So...
power of t=0 (that's the a coefficient for each):
cf(0) = cg(0) * ch(0).
Everything else has a nonzero power of t, so that one's easy.
power of t=1 (that's the b coefficient for f, but that's the a coefficient of g times the b coefficient of h, plus the b coefficient of g times the a coefficient of h):
cf(1) = cg(0)*ch(1) + ch(0)*cg(1)
That's the next one.
Power of t=2:
cf(2) = cg(0)*ch(2)+cg(1)*ch(1)+cg(2)*ch(0).
Here, we're beginning to get a pattern.
cf(n) = SUM (i=0...n) cg(i)ch(n-i)
So if we have all the values 0...n for g and h, then we can calculate value n for f, as well.
DIVISION
Okay, up through this, picard got. He couldn't get division. However, Parker and Sochacki posited that you could take the differential of f=g/h, to get:
f' = d [g*h^-1]/dt = (g'h - gh')/(h^2)
so
f'*h*h = g'*h - g*h'
Now, if we have coefficients for g and h through n, and we want the f' coefficient #n, then we need to look at the coefficients that accompany t^(n-1), because on the left we have f', and if we know
Looking at the rest of the left hand side f'*h*h, we note that since we have h through point n, we have the coefficients of h*h through point n as well. So calling k=h*h, we have
f'k = g'h-h'g
where it's the coefficients of the (n-1) powers of t that are of interest.
However, when you multiply that lefthand side out, you quickly see that there is only one coefficient in k that multiplies against the (n-1) power of t, and all other values are known! So dropping our interest in all other powers of t, and just dealing with the coefficient of interest:
SUM(i=0...n-1) cf'(i)k(n-1-i) = SUM(q=0...n-1)cg(n-1-q)ch'(q) - SUM (r=0...n-1)cg'(r)ch(n-1-r)
but cg'(r) = (r+1)cg(r) so
I'm going to stop it here, because I'm doing this in my head, and rather than give you a wrong answer, I'm going to say it should be really obvious if you take the
We all know how complication three-body motion is, so with the number of objects affected by various gravitational fields out there, it would be incredibly hard to predict any movement at all.
What they said was correct at one time. It is no longer correct.
It actually isn't all that hard to predict their motion. There's a new mathematical tool, the Parker-Sochacki solution to the Picard Iteration, that has made great strides in the ability to predict this.
The solution that it turns out is a MacLauren series [functionally equal to the Taylor Series] dependant on as many variables as you need. However, for this you'd have everything dependent on time.
I know that you really dislike having Bush in the White House and all, but isn't the point of open source supposed to be a little bit wider than that?
Just a thought: you're trying to treat the symptom, not the cause. Get your own guy in there, and he'll be as much a symptom of the same cause. You could as easily push a spinning coin north, by pushing your finger northward into it.
Look at the history of Virginia Commonwealth University. See that point where they were completely shut down? That's because they *were* firing their tenured professors, and in the end completely shutting down the university was all that the state could do to stop it. When they sent examiners to interview the professors about the situation, the president would not let them alone with the professors. Anyhow, the state discovered that they couldn't do anything except close the university and fire everyone.
Jump over to James Madison University. It seems that the then president of the university was trying to force through academically impossible changes. [For example, teach upper-level calculus before basic calculus, "to give them a feel for it".] So one of the Physics professors came up with proof of tax fraud. At that point, the president fired the whole Physics department, because although he couldn't fire a tenured professor without cause, he could eliminate the need for the professor by abolishing Physics [impressive stupidity for a university with a medical program, but finding tax fraud was a real threat]. Eventually, the firing was rescinded, and the president retired, but the potential for tax fraud penalties was probably a slightly larger gun than tenure. Jump forward, same university, different president. The tenured professors' contract is the University Handbook; and the administration updated it, taking to itself all the rights of academic free speech, and making the contract unilaterally modifiable. My father caught this, and in the Faculty Senate pointed out that (1) this had no effect without Faculty Senate ratification, (2) they couldn't ratify it because unlaterally modifiable contracts are illegal, (3) they shouldn't ratify it, and (4) without ratification, they were working either on the old handbook (in which case the old handbook stood), or else without a contract, which implied no particular tenure protection, but also implied no protection for the univeristy against lawsuit.
In the end, he got those clauses struck. But tenure really doesn't protect academic free speech too well.
In reality, tenure and academic free speech were initiated by the university administrations for their own convenience. It seems that, all the time people were coming up and saying "I'll donate X million dollars, if you'll teach this or that." And the problem was that if they taught this or that, 2 other donors would say "I'm not donating any more, because you're teaching nonsense." If they declined, however, then the person who wanted to affect the curriculum would begin a publicity campaign against the administration, and it was a real mess. So the academic free speech became a way that the administration could say "sorry, it's against contracts we've already signed. It's impossible."
Simple point here: whether or not @stake is involved in a conspiracy, @stake clearly considers themselves to be a advertising/publicity agent of Microsoft.
@Stake clearly does not consider themselves to be a news organization, or a news clearing house.
That said, they should, in the future, be held to the standards of advertising agents, with all the benefits of such -- not news agents with their benefits.
Therefore, if they want to come in to cover a software convention, by all means let them [but at full price: no media pass]. If they want to claim first Amendment right to speech, they can, within the bounds and with the protections set by our government for advertisers. Not within the bounds and with the protections set by our government for news media.
I don't see a reason to apply conspiracy here; just treat them as what they consider themselves to be.
When I left America around 2000, one of the major reasons was that for the previous 7 years, I was well aware that America was fallen.
I came to Lithuania, and my students asked me why I came. I told them "because America has fallen". Nobody believed me.
Anyhow, immigration screwed up my papers, and I had to go back to America to reapply for entry. On 9/11, I was on a flight Warsaw-JFK. The towers fell -- but still it wasn't obvious to most that America was fallen.
I think it's becoming obvious to more people, now.
What do they mean by fallen? That the economy is going or gone; that freedom is going or gone. What do I mean by fallen? Then righteous living, honesty, and morality are gone, and therefore everything else is going to go too.
Let me be clear that although it was during Bill Clinton's term that I realized the US was fallen, it was not Clinton's fault. Clinton was a symptom. If he hadn't been born, then there'd be someone else. In the same way, our current predicament isn't GW's fault; Bush is a symptom. If it weren't him, it could as easily have been Gore, same Patriot Act, different signature.
If you want to trace it back to something, I'd probably suggest it was the 4/5 comprise in writing the US Constitution -- everything from there has been pretty logical in its progression.
That said, I have to say I'm no longer afraid, for two reasons; and I say that knowing that we again have tickets back to America, and we may well end up living there for the rest of our lives, my intended plans aside. I won't say the first reason I'm no longer afraid; but the second is the book of Habakkuk, only three chapters long.
But as for voting, I don't think there's a lot that can be done. However, my uncle wondered if maybe a voter could sue to have his votes counted by hand, since that lawsuit was successsful against the Educational Testing Service.
Here's what he said: I wonder if there is court common-law precedence against automatic vote counting. I had a lot of complaints against ETS whon I applied to graduate school, about the way they have poor security on their tests, the way they lost all of the tests from Montreal, and then informed my application schools that I had failed to show up to write the GRE. But in doing that complaining, I found out that people had taken them to court about machine scoring, and the court ruled that if test takers want their exams scored by hand, then ETS has to do that. Also, the court ruled that ETS must reveal what they think are the correct answers to their questions. I wonder if those kinds of rulings from the 1970s (New York Supreme Court, I think) could be carried over to this. That a voter could insist that their vote be counted by hand, not machine.
Aarrgh! I notice that someone is moderating the criticism of "Double-edged Sword" redundant, with only 12 copies of the same thing!
This is ridiculous! We have a right to make our posts, and it doesn't take all that much effort to bypass them.
Everyone, come help join me DDoS the Redundant Moderators, by posting the same thing 12 times more!
Here goes, for those who need an update:
#7044775) He is an anti-spammer. RTFA.
#7044777) I think you're misunderstanding the article. It was anti-spam services.
#7044782) Um, you got it wrong pal. It wasn't spammers getting DDOS'd, it was spam fighters. #7044786)
Unfortunately, these are not spammers who are being forced to pack up and go home, but the black-hole lists. #7044794)Uh, you might try reading the article. #7044795)That was an ANTI-spam site DDOSed out of existance. #7044799
Kind of the wrong way around... They were anti-spam services, I believe. #7044800)
RTFA. It's not spammers that's taken down, but ANTI-spammers. #7044806) Did you read the summary? These are ANTI-spam boxes that were DDOSed. #7044816)
not included here, due to shocking originality of the poster #7044850)Didn't even read the article. It wsn't a SPAM machine that went down. #7044853) *cough*
You don't seem to have RTA, because they are the *anti*-spam guys that provide RBLs...
Really, I think that these anti-redundant folks on slashdot are getting out of hand. We've got to get serious about DDoSing them, or who knows, with this level of involvement they might go on to actually stopping SPAM.
On the other hand, this sounds quite interesting in another sense. Anything that can be done iteratively can usually be done more quickly directly.
Therefore, an improvement on the MP3 encoder would not be covered by the patent. That is, you find the mathematical formula that automatically takes into account all the iterations at once, using the same formula. Then you use that to write the.mp3 file.
For example, you could use the Parker-Sochaki solution to the Picard iteration to solve for the final output, all at once. Now, the Parker-Sochaki solution to the picard iteration *is* an iterative process, but it is an iterative process in the same sense that the Taylor formula is an iterative process.
Rather than repeatedly causing data loss, you calculate the final result, at once, and each iteration gives you twice the number of bits of precision for the whole output. So it isn't so much an iteratively recursive algorithm, as it is an optimal solution.
Can someone explain for me Article 6A, "Right to use of patented techniques without authorization or royalty, if needed solely to achieve software interoperatibility"?
Does this imply that, for example, Linux MP3 encoders are now legal in the EU, without royalty or authorization [or will be]?
Since you can basically make any web service you want, wouldn't it be possible to make up a "spam-retardant" email transfer program, and then let your Linux distribution slip it into your mailbox?
That way, we could get a parallel email system up and going. Once it was up and going, then I'd think that more and more people would pick that as the email where they did their real business -- and the flawed email would die.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but that's directly contrary to Christianity. You see, when I take communion, and eat of the Body of Christ, I accept that what happened to Him also will happen to His Body (the Church) and to me (as a member of His body).
What that means, then, is that I don't sacrifice my sheep to the wolves, in order to avoid being eaten myself. Rather, I sacrifice myself for my sheep, if need be. That said, I'd rather that it need not be.
Now, I moved out to Lithuania in order to lower my costs, and get cheaper labor. But I'm not going to pay them slave labor rates. We have 1 partner, 1 employee. The partner is in this for the long term, the employee is not, so I'll talk about the employee. He had been out of work for 6 months at least, taking brick-parking-lot laying jobs, at about 35% of the wage that we hired him for. That said, the wage we hired him for was a low livable wage. It was not good; it was acceptable. Since his wife did have a job selling bread at a kiosk, they were able to make ends meet, but it wasn't a family wage. In reality, you need a family wage to raise a family.
He's moving to Germany -- they'll be on welfare at first, but he prefers to work, and I hope he gets a job quickly.
So very soon, I'll be going down, and asking for $100k. I'm going to make every case in the book why we deserve it, and why we need it. If we get it, that's great. If we don't, fine -- but I'm not going to continue even that "not-good" level of pay. Nor am I going to let my partner lose out. If they don't give us the $100k, *I* will be out.
Not that I'm coming empty handed. I have a book proposal almost ready, and if they want it, we can produce it. Every 2-volume book we produce makes them more than a million dollars, and that's one per year. This, if accepted, will increase their market share dramatically, too, especially in these difficult economic times.
Previous to that point, typically a young Roman would become a soldier, march, fight, and build roads for a time, and then would retire, recieving as his retirement a landstead in the territories, free and clear.
By doing things this way, you ended up getting a huge number of independent economic actors -- and economic actors who knew how to defend their property, as well.
Meanwhile, the dictators [within the Roman Republic] were dictators for 2 years, following which they were appointed with a lifetime appointment to be the governor of a territory. As a result, he had every interest in maintaining the economic integrity of his territory, and again you got lots of economic actors.
Now, when the Roman Empire began to decay, you had patricians who found that they could gain vast wealth by having land worked by slaves [not independent actors]. As a result, they pushed for control of the land, and got it. So instead of ex-soldiers working their own plot, you had slaves working a Roman Senator's plot.
But then the territories weren't strong; so they also began to appoint the governors, and the governors' main job was to extract all the taxes he could. Thus, again the economies got disrupted, and the number of free actors in the region again decreased.
This made Rome incredibly weak, and indeed the Republic fell, first to a slave revolt, and then later to Julius Caesar. That resulted in a contraction of the Roman Empire, and more intrigue within Rome, less without.
However, you still had consolidation of wealth ongoing, and the territories of the Germanic tribes weakening further. Also, in Egypt, you had the wealth [in this case, food production: Egypt was Rome's bread basket] consolidating into the hands of a few.
So by the time of the sack of Rome, you had Senators and slaves. What happened was pretty simple. The Huns attacked the germanic tribes, and beat the first one, claiming their land. Further, they issued a ruling: you beat the next tribe over, and you go free -- or you don't fight, and be our slaves. They thus propagated the effect straight through (note that they used independent actors as their army!), and drove the Germanic tribes out. So at that point, you had the current losers fighting the war for the Huns, and the former losers wandering around looking for food and work.
One of the Germanic tribes that was wandering around was the Vandals. They stopped in Northern Italy, and petitioned Rome for food. The Roman Senate, being compassionate if greedy, voted to give them food, and said "yes, come halfway down and stop, and we'll feed you." They then voted to give the contract for the work to a single Senator, who was expected to embezzle some of it, but get some food to the Vandals. He embezzled it all [Single economic actor, single mode of failure]. The Visigoths didn't stop. They swept through Rome, eating almost all the food. The slaves of the Senators (most of the Roman population) realized they were going to starve, and left with the Visigoths.
Subsequently, the Visigoths went all through Rome, looking for food, and getting useless gold and useful slaves instead. Thus, Rome was sacked.
The Bible is chock full of similar stories. Even if you don't believe it is mostly accurate, the stories are descriptive enough that you can see that more economic actors is better; and a gutting of the number of economic actors presages a fall.
Interesting. Can you point to a Google cache of your predictions, or point to where on your website you made your predictions in a datewise format?
Also, could you hope up a few lines to here and tell me what you think of this? That, since you are more interested in the history...
I'm sorry. You didn't understand: that was $18k for all three of us PLUS taxes. Or, if you wish, average of $5000 per person per year.
But no, we are about as automated as we can afford to be at this point. Indeed, we're running on old equipment, old software, because we have to buy our own stuff there, too.
You know how advertisers outsource the advertising until it gets to spam, and the spammers are the bottom rung? Well, we're the bottom rung of textbook production, but there's only one rung above us, and we aren't going to make the step into evil, nor are we going to outsource or be able to outsource.
Fact is, also, we were profitable before and expecting to get more profitable as time went.
But our publisher got bought out by another publisher who assumed that they could simply reduce costs and take the extra as profit [wrong... ], who got bought out by another publisher thinking the same thing, and so one way or another we've gone from a top of $30,000 down to $18,000.
[BTW... when I say publisher, publishers are kindof like Bank + IP company. They don't do the work so much as outsource the work, and they are extremely profitable.]
It has to do more with the ratio of number of degrees of freedom for the entity (say, a country), versus the number of modes of failure, which is a function of the number of units involved. To have an advantage there, as your population grows you need exponential growth of the degrees of freedom, in order to match the exponential growth in the number of modes of failure.
I have no idea whether any economist has looked into this. I get this from bouncing thoughts and arguments back and forth with my brother, though he's more insightful than I am in economics.
As for historians, well, I guess you could say that we're amature historians, but again this isn't a career, so I've not done a lot of research into other people's work, except for published books, which essentially provide data.
So I can't give you a yes on either of those questions.
The way our laws are structured, the IPO goes to the investment houses. They get to buy at discount rates, and then sell the initial sales to their friends, who make 10-50% on the first day's rise.
If you want to invest in a company, you pretty much have to start one yourself. My advice, though, is that unless you want to donate a lot of time and free money to a bank, don't go the SB/SME route. Go with an incredible secret money machine. That is, start without capitalization, come up with a single product, expand your product line, reevaluate, and so on. Do it without external investment or loans.
However, if you graphed it according to the number of connections between independent economic units, you'll see that the countries are gutted before they fall. That is, for example, the government seizes the industries, or destroys them; or businessmen enslave their compatriots; or they find ways to withhold their workers' wages, thus destroying the economic infrastructure.
You'll find some apparent exceptions of course -- for example, the fall of Tyre to Alexander. However, even that isn't really an exception, because Tyre did not have a defense infrastructure. Rather, they depended for their defense upon their neighbors, and so when their neighbors got gutted, they got gutted too, and were ripe for a fall.
You can also see this in the stories of the Bible, and in the warnings by the prophets.
Now, I would argue that we are going about a mass destruction of our economy: that is, we are reducing the number of links between independent economic units, not increasing that number.
Now, this topic's author seems to see that putting people out of work is dangerous. I'd agree with that, though I don't really agree with his solutions.
But in the end, I don't think that we really have the power to make or break trends. We can make our own actions right, and in the end be able to say "I helped" or "I was part of the problem". But when the cards are down, I think that we'll just either have to have faith in God, and take our comfort from Him. In other words, Habbakuk.
What's also sad is that the corporations are much better at taking other people's wealth than creating their own.
Ultimately, no system is perfect, and imperfect systems eventually break down. As with your car, when they break down, people get hurt. Unlike with your car, the cause of the system breaking down is not that the people or companies are worn out, but that people don't care to follow God's laws.
Quite simply our system is breaking down, heavily. At such times, it's probably better to read Habbakuk, and understand it, and accept it. That way, you won't be a part of the problem, anyhow.
Oh, and if you *are* one of the wealthy who is trying to save up for a rainy day at cost to his workers... read James 5.
You see, I produce physics study guides. I can document that we produce the best selling ancillaries. I can document that we saved the publisher ~100k - 200k dollars on this last book alone, through reduced print costs, brought about by our good job. I can document that we delivered 45 days ahead of schedule. But our pay sucks so badly ($18k for a year, for 3 workers) that our credit cards are ready to push through the roof. When that happens, our computers get sold, and the wealth creation process stops. In our case, yeah, we could have paid less to our workers, but even the amount we paid was low though standard here. So we picked the route of maxing out our credit cards instead, until the contract was finished. The wages we paid were not good, but they were the best we could do. The wages that were paid to us were clearly unjust, to the point of evil. But it can't continue, and won't; and I won't feed my sheep to the wolves -- better that we break.
So the first thing I'd say is, if you want to bring people back into the wealth creation process, how about letting them keep a bit of the wealth they create. Don't disconnect wealth creation from getting wealth.
And no, I'm not talking about taxes, in particular. Yeah, that can be part of it. I'm talking about economic justice to your neighbor, period, no matter who you are. That includes to your waitress (tips), to your newspaper boy, to the guy who mows your lawn, and so on. Look at home, and see what you're doing wrong yourself, and fix it.
For those of you who are Catholic [and went to Church], I'd point to James 5:1, from last Sunday.
Weep and mourn, you wealthy, at your impending miseries. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver is corrupted, and their rust shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as if it were fire. You have heaped treasure for the last days, but behold! the hire of the laborers who reaped your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cries out, and the cries of those who reaped it are heard by the Lord. You have lived in pleasure on the Earth, wantonly, and have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed the just, and he does not resist you."
Quite simply, if you're a company, than you have to compare the cost of using GPL to the cost of royalties paid out to proprietary systems.
If the cost of using the GPL [all the searches you mention] is less than the cost of the proprietary system, then you may want to use the GPL.
If it's more, you still have an option: don't distribute the binaries: use it in-house. For example, you could write your own program, and then create a JAVA web application that used your program for a fee.
Now, if you are a private individual, then there's another easy, cheap way to use the GPL: act in good faith to GPL your own product. Then, if someone discovers you didn't properly credit something that you're supposed to, since you're acting in good faith, they will to. They'll notify you "patch your source here...", and you will, and that'll be that.
On the other hand, I suspect that you may be trolling, in which case you just got one fish. Good job, except that trolling is ultimately a waste of your time, whereas my posting is informative, and helpful to others who see it, and therefore is not a waste of time.
The way they measure the frequency of these things is based upon the speed of light.
Therefore, "measuring the speed of light" actually uses the speed of light to calculate the speed of light, in a pattern of circular reasoning.
So this experiment is invalid.
I learned this when I spoke to my father about this article, having seen it linked to on slashdot about a year ago.
The one difference is that last time it was Tacos. This time it's Hemos, in an interesting twist.
In a very real way, both of these problems are indicative but not proof of injustice by the oil companies. [This includes Chevron, one of Rockefeller's Standard Oil companies, but I'm not sure that Chevron is all it is.]
Point being, if Nigeria has had a huge poverty problem before, they'll likely have it afterwards, as well. Money typically gets spent at the behest of the powerful to make more money for the powerful.
So I really don't expect this to have benefits. But if it does, then I'm all for it.
... we hear that Nigeria has blasted a satellite into orbit. No comments have been made about a purported increased need for broadband satellite internet access...
i,q, and r were iteration variables.
In this, also, a,b,c, and d were coefficients. An alternative naming convention for the same coefficients, but generalized to functions f,g, and h were
a for function f is "cf(0)". That is, [c]oefficient for [f] number zero.
a for function g is "cg(0)". That is, [c]oefficient for [g] number 0.
b for function f is "cf(1)" that is, [c]oefficient for [f] number 1.
and so on.
Now, here goes: Suppose you have a function that is a taylor series: y=a + bt + ct^2 + dt^3...
Alternatively, I could write that y=cy(0)+cy(1)t^1 + cy(2)t^2 + cy(3)t^3... where cy(n) is the coefficient a,b,c,d...I'm going to switch back and forth a little, for convenience' sake.
Now, at time t=0, what is the value of y? y=a. Suppose y measures position. At time t=0, what is the value of b? b is the initial velocity. That is because y'=b+2ct+3ct^2+4ct^3..., and at t=0, everything except b drops out. But the time derivitive of y is velocity. So b is equal to the initial velocity.
That's the concept of the Picard iteration: it's incredibly easy to deal with differentials if you have a Taylor series.
Let's stop here, and instead of calling the coefficients a,b,c,d... let's name them as mathematicians do: cy(0),cy(1),cy(2),cy(3)... That is, coefficient for y #0, #1, #2, and so on.
Now, suppose I have three Taylor functions, f,g,and h, and I know two of them, and I have an equation f=g+h. How do I solve for g, for example, knowing f and h? Well, this one's easy from algebra. Each coefficient can be calculated from the relationship cf(n)=cg(n)+ch(n). So that one's easy. So is subtraction, same method, different sign.
Now multiplication is harder, and division is incredibly hard, and so that's kindof where Picard stopped. So it didn't seem all that useful to him. But Parker and Sochacki got it past that.
If we had f(t)=g(t)*h(t), well, for these to be functionally equivalent, then the coefficients for the g*h entries on the right should be equal to the coefficient for f, same power of t. So...
power of t=0 (that's the a coefficient for each):
cf(0) = cg(0) * ch(0).
Everything else has a nonzero power of t, so that one's easy.
power of t=1 (that's the b coefficient for f, but that's the a coefficient of g times the b coefficient of h, plus the b coefficient of g times the a coefficient of h):
cf(1) = cg(0)*ch(1) + ch(0)*cg(1)
That's the next one.
Power of t=2:
cf(2) = cg(0)*ch(2)+cg(1)*ch(1)+cg(2)*ch(0).
Here, we're beginning to get a pattern.
cf(n) = SUM (i=0...n) cg(i)ch(n-i)
So if we have all the values 0...n for g and h, then we can calculate value n for f, as well.
DIVISION
Okay, up through this, picard got. He couldn't get division. However, Parker and Sochacki posited that you could take the differential of f=g/h, to get:
f' = d [g*h^-1]/dt = (g'h - gh')/(h^2)
so
f'*h*h = g'*h - g*h'
Now, if we have coefficients for g and h through n, and we want the f' coefficient #n, then we need to look at the coefficients that accompany t^(n-1), because on the left we have f', and if we know
f=cf(0) + cf(1)t + cf(2)t^2 + ... + cf(n-1)t^(n-1)+ [unknown]cf(n)t^n
then
f'=cf(1)+2cf(2)t + ... (n-1)cf(n)t^(n-1)
where cf(n) again is unknown.
Looking at the rest of the left hand side f'*h*h, we note that since we have h through point n, we have the coefficients of h*h through point n as well. So calling k=h*h, we have
f'k = g'h-h'g
where it's the coefficients of the (n-1) powers of t that are of interest.
However, when you multiply that lefthand side out, you quickly see that there is only one coefficient in k that multiplies against the (n-1) power of t, and all other values are known! So dropping our interest in all other powers of t, and just dealing with the coefficient of interest:
SUM(i=0...n-1) cf'(i)k(n-1-i) = SUM(q=0...n-1)cg(n-1-q)ch'(q) - SUM (r=0...n-1)cg'(r)ch(n-1-r)
but cg'(r) = (r+1)cg(r) so
I'm going to stop it here, because I'm doing this in my head, and rather than give you a wrong answer, I'm going to say it should be really obvious if you take the
What they said was correct at one time. It is no longer correct.
It actually isn't all that hard to predict their motion. There's a new mathematical tool, the Parker-Sochacki solution to the Picard Iteration, that has made great strides in the ability to predict this.
What's even better, this solution method is incredibly easy, conceptually simple, ideal for initial value problems, yields exact functional solutions, involves simple algebra [yes, that's right: simple algebra solutions to almost any set of partial differential equations] and turns out doubling precision for every iteration.
Oh, yes: there is a version out for Maple, too.
The solution that it turns out is a MacLauren series [functionally equal to the Taylor Series] dependant on as many variables as you need. However, for this you'd have everything dependent on time.
Also, this method *has* been used to predict planetary, moon, and asteroid motion. It works.
[PS: That last link has code for you code monkeys]
Just a thought: you're trying to treat the symptom, not the cause. Get your own guy in there, and he'll be as much a symptom of the same cause. You could as easily push a spinning coin north, by pushing your finger northward into it.
Look at the history of Virginia Commonwealth University. See that point where they were completely shut down? That's because they *were* firing their tenured professors, and in the end completely shutting down the university was all that the state could do to stop it. When they sent examiners to interview the professors about the situation, the president would not let them alone with the professors. Anyhow, the state discovered that they couldn't do anything except close the university and fire everyone.
Jump over to James Madison University. It seems that the then president of the university was trying to force through academically impossible changes. [For example, teach upper-level calculus before basic calculus, "to give them a feel for it".] So one of the Physics professors came up with proof of tax fraud. At that point, the president fired the whole Physics department, because although he couldn't fire a tenured professor without cause, he could eliminate the need for the professor by abolishing Physics [impressive stupidity for a university with a medical program, but finding tax fraud was a real threat]. Eventually, the firing was rescinded, and the president retired, but the potential for tax fraud penalties was probably a slightly larger gun than tenure. Jump forward, same university, different president. The tenured professors' contract is the University Handbook; and the administration updated it, taking to itself all the rights of academic free speech, and making the contract unilaterally modifiable. My father caught this, and in the Faculty Senate pointed out that (1) this had no effect without Faculty Senate ratification, (2) they couldn't ratify it because unlaterally modifiable contracts are illegal,
(3) they shouldn't ratify it, and (4) without ratification, they were working either on the old handbook (in which case the old handbook stood), or else without a contract, which implied no particular tenure protection, but also implied no protection for the univeristy against lawsuit.
In the end, he got those clauses struck. But tenure really doesn't protect academic free speech too well.
In reality, tenure and academic free speech were initiated by the university administrations for their own convenience. It seems that, all the time people were coming up and saying "I'll donate X million dollars, if you'll teach this or that." And the problem was that if they taught this or that, 2 other donors would say "I'm not donating any more, because you're teaching nonsense." If they declined, however, then the person who wanted to affect the curriculum would begin a publicity campaign against the administration, and it was a real mess. So the academic free speech became a way that the administration could say "sorry, it's against contracts we've already signed. It's impossible."
Yeah. It's a shame to see such a person get burned (@stake).
Simple point here: whether or not @stake is involved in a conspiracy, @stake clearly considers themselves to be a advertising/publicity agent of Microsoft.
@Stake clearly does not consider themselves to be a news organization, or a news clearing house.
That said, they should, in the future, be held to the standards of advertising agents, with all the benefits of such -- not news agents with their benefits.
Therefore, if they want to come in to cover a software convention, by all means let them [but at full price: no media pass]. If they want to claim first Amendment right to speech, they can, within the bounds and with the protections set by our government for advertisers. Not within the bounds and with the protections set by our government for news media.
I don't see a reason to apply conspiracy here; just treat them as what they consider themselves to be.
When I left America around 2000, one of the major reasons was that for the previous 7 years, I was well aware that America was fallen.
I came to Lithuania, and my students asked me why I came. I told them "because America has fallen". Nobody believed me.
Anyhow, immigration screwed up my papers, and I had to go back to America to reapply for entry. On 9/11, I was on a flight Warsaw-JFK. The towers fell -- but still it wasn't obvious to most that America was fallen.
I think it's becoming obvious to more people, now.
What do they mean by fallen? That the economy is going or gone; that freedom is going or gone. What do I mean by fallen? Then righteous living, honesty, and morality are gone, and therefore everything else is going to go too.
Let me be clear that although it was during Bill Clinton's term that I realized the US was fallen, it was not Clinton's fault. Clinton was a symptom. If he hadn't been born, then there'd be someone else. In the same way, our current predicament isn't GW's fault; Bush is a symptom. If it weren't him, it could as easily have been Gore, same Patriot Act, different signature.
If you want to trace it back to something, I'd probably suggest it was the 4/5 comprise in writing the US Constitution -- everything from there has been pretty logical in its progression.
That said, I have to say I'm no longer afraid, for two reasons; and I say that knowing that we again have tickets back to America, and we may well end up living there for the rest of our lives, my intended plans aside. I won't say the first reason I'm no longer afraid; but the second is the book of Habakkuk, only three chapters long.
But as for voting, I don't think there's a lot that can be done. However, my uncle wondered if maybe a voter could sue to have his votes counted by hand, since that lawsuit was successsful against the Educational Testing Service.
Here's what he said:
I wonder if there is court common-law precedence against automatic vote counting. I had a lot of complaints against ETS whon I applied to graduate school, about the way they have poor security on their tests, the way they lost all of the tests from Montreal, and then informed my application schools that I had failed to show up to write the GRE. But in doing that complaining, I found out that people had taken them to court about machine scoring, and the court ruled that if test takers want their exams scored by hand, then ETS has to do that. Also, the court ruled that ETS must reveal what they think are the correct answers to their questions. I wonder if those kinds of rulings from the 1970s (New York Supreme Court, I think) could be carried over to this. That a voter could insist that their vote be counted by hand, not machine.
This is ridiculous! We have a right to make our posts, and it doesn't take all that much effort to bypass them.
Everyone, come help join me DDoS the Redundant Moderators, by posting the same thing 12 times more!
Here goes, for those who need an update:
#7044775) He is an anti-spammer. RTFA.
#7044777) I think you're misunderstanding the article. It was anti-spam services.
#7044782) Um, you got it wrong pal. It wasn't spammers getting DDOS'd, it was spam fighters.
#7044786) Unfortunately, these are not spammers who are being forced to pack up and go home, but the black-hole lists.
#7044794)Uh, you might try reading the article.
#7044795)That was an ANTI-spam site DDOSed out of existance.
#7044799 Kind of the wrong way around... They were anti-spam services, I believe.
#7044800) RTFA. It's not spammers that's taken down, but ANTI-spammers.
#7044806) Did you read the summary? These are ANTI-spam boxes that were DDOSed.
#7044816) not included here, due to shocking originality of the poster
#7044850)Didn't even read the article. It wsn't a SPAM machine that went down.
#7044853) *cough* You don't seem to have RTA, because they are the *anti*-spam guys that provide RBLs...
Really, I think that these anti-redundant folks on slashdot are getting out of hand. We've got to get serious about DDoSing them, or who knows, with this level of involvement they might go on to actually stopping SPAM.
On the other hand, this sounds quite interesting in another sense. Anything that can be done iteratively can usually be done more quickly directly.
.mp3 file.
Therefore, an improvement on the MP3 encoder would not be covered by the patent. That is, you find the mathematical formula that automatically takes into account all the iterations at once, using the same formula. Then you use that to write the
For example, you could use the Parker-Sochaki solution to the Picard iteration to solve for the final output, all at once. Now, the Parker-Sochaki solution to the picard iteration *is* an iterative process, but it is an iterative process in the same sense that the Taylor formula is an iterative process.
Rather than repeatedly causing data loss, you calculate the final result, at once, and each iteration gives you twice the number of bits of precision for the whole output. So it isn't so much an iteratively recursive algorithm, as it is an optimal solution.
Can someone explain for me Article 6A, "Right to use of patented techniques without authorization or royalty, if needed solely to achieve software interoperatibility"?
Does this imply that, for example, Linux MP3 encoders are now legal in the EU, without royalty or authorization [or will be]?
Since you can basically make any web service you want, wouldn't it be possible to make up a "spam-retardant" email transfer program, and then let your Linux distribution slip it into your mailbox?
That way, we could get a parallel email system up and going. Once it was up and going, then I'd think that more and more people would pick that as the email where they did their real business -- and the flawed email would die.