The difference between the rich and the poor is greater than ever, and power over the unwilling must be maintained through security.
The solution?
There isn't a solution that is satisfactory to current decision makers who hold the power. The less a system suits its participants, the more the enforcement cost. This escalates until a system becomes untenable.
The solution is to re-engineer the economic system, to prevent people from having the capability of getting so rich that poor people feel they are better off attacking or exploiting the system than they are living within its boundaries.
That is going to require a revolution. There will be blood.
Money greases the cogs of governance, to be sure. But, more people than ever have money nowadays. Maybe political scientists can recognize the new breed of "democracy" we've formed in the Washingtonian super collider of... bad metaphors. You get my point.
That is a problem for sure. Can't have too many people owning too much money or everything gets screwed up. But there is a solution. The solution is to have the Federal Reserve print off a whole bunch more, then dole it out through the old boys network. Inside a couple of years, you have something like what happened to Russia, where the plutocrats own everything and the cash a person slaved their life away for goes into a wheelbarrow to buy bread with. So, don't fret. The solution is being implemented this very moment.
Dude, they're not "for the little guy". The parent was right.
Patents were crafted by people who accept capitalism and competition as inviolate principles, and wish to prevent the sort of secret hoarding that defined the guilds of the Mercantile age.
There was once a time where if you wanted to learn secret knowledge, you had to join a secret society. If you were in the secret society, you couldn't leave and practice or share, because the law prevented you from doing so.
The point of patents was to force secret societies to reveal their secrets if they wanted the law to continue to validate and enforce their control. If you didn't reveal the secret, you couldn't ask the cops to go shut that guy down, but if you did, you could.
This would be better realized in the modern age by making transparency of process a requirement to enter the market, period. We already have safety inspectors whose approval you must win to enter the market, so it's not like this would be a novel invasion of privacy or freedom that didn't exist before.
In one sentence, you state that you're aware of the truth of my statements and the dangers they place us all in. In the next, you demand that I prove the truth of my statements, and compare me to Bozo the Clown.
How about "When people fight tooth and nail instead of co-operating, everything gets all fucked up."
The problem is the capitalist structure.
Patents were originally created to overcome an inherent and nasty flaw in the capitalist structure.
They were a band-aid, trying to fix the fact that the structure creates an inherent motivation to be the biggest fish in the pond by killing other fish rather than trying to be the best fish you can be and celebrating the success of your neighbour as he enriches your community.
As we scale up, the "eat your neighbour" systems problems become worse.
Ok, you don't like the word conspiracy. You're too propagandized, and it makes you think of crackpots. How about this.
I'm telling you that there is an open collaboration among the people who exercise monopoly control over the tech industry, with the goal of giving them total information control and selling that total information control to governments and corporations. The technology is not a secret, and it is embedded in modern computers, and in set top boxes, and in playback devices. It is functional, and Vista is made to work with it. Which is why it took so long to get working, and why it works so slowly.
This is not a secret. However, there are a legion of people like you, trying to spin it into irrelevance. But at the end of the day, your arguments amount to "So What? You're a poopy-head!"
We've all got problems. Some of us see them before they roll over us, and most don't. You don't.
If you're claiming that Vista is a diabolical conspiracy to take over the world, I think that proves my point about the inevitability of cock-up triumphing over conspiracy.
Dude, Microsoft is the result of a diabolical conspiracy to take over the world. That's not a secret, it's a modern legend.
Honestly, what world do you come from? It must be nice there....
Worried about the illegal acts your company has been engaged in being leaked to the public? Trusted computing can make it impossible.
Hospital behind on their software payments after those budget cutbacks and the legal system won't help you enforce? Shut them off at the push of a button.
Someone at a news agency release information that compromises the governments position? Revoke the signature key, now it will not play even if someone does try to redistribute. Censorship after the fact.
They put the hardware on everyones desktops quite some time ago, just needs the right software support. That is what Vista is. It'll also be embedded in every set-top box after transitioning everyone away from analog television.
Now, imagine you were a powerful government or among the richest companies on earth, and someone approached you and offered to bring this scheme to reality. How much would that be worth to you? Billions? A place in the regime? All of the above?
Connect the dots.
The general population will not believe this is happening until the pieces are all in place. They can't. It's too big, and it means discarding everything you thought you knew about the way the world works. But it's still happening nevertheless.
The end user? Show them something flashy and keep dropping the price. Get it out there into the market at all costs. Do it while you've still got the influence to pull it off.
Maybe Ballmer can re-invent himself as a caber tosser after his company collapses. I understand he's good at throwing heavy things, and he's definitely a tosser...
Capitalism isn't going to fix your culture. It's going to migrate the power from those who have a duty to wield it properly (which they may or may not ignore) to those who have no duty to serve anyone but themselves. It's not going to decentralize it and give more power to the people, but rather create an environment where there is nothing objectionable about using that power purely to serve itself.
I envy you your culture. I consider the possibility that you might establish a democracy without surrendering your economic system to be the greatest hope for the human race. If you end up like us, with a meaningless sham of a democracy and an economic system that leaves everyone as slaves to oligarchs, you'll find that your people are estranged from the means by which their livelihood is preserved, divided against each other, and abused in a way that makes your current system look like a primitive paradise.
The people of the West are not happy people, and they are not well treated people. They are a sterile and harried people, divorced from everything that gives meaning to a humans life in their struggle to survive at the expense of their neighbour. The end result of our cultural changes in the last century is a world full of too many elderly and too few young. Our economics see to it that those who ended up most divorced from the cycle of life hold all the power and control. Parents are suffering deprivation while their children care for the childless in an effort to make enough money to keep themselves alive. More than half the work force is ready to retire. Soon there will be an utter collapse of this society, and there will be nothing left to show we were here but rust stains on the dirt where great buildings once stood.
Our only hope is to steal and enslave your young because we have none of our own, and we have immigration policies in place that clearly confirm this.
You really, really do not want this for yourself.
If you are wise, you will aspire to a system that preserves a community involvement in all the aspects of your society that are essential, removes arbitrary government powers that are non-essential from the books, fills the positions with a real democratic system rather than the party style politics and the cronyism they bring.
Happiness comes from understanding and being directly involved in the means by which your safety is preserved, and having the liberty to decide what your remaining personal time will be used for.
It doesn't come from having riches and people to care for you. All that brings is the fear of how to live if they ever should stop, and a desperate grasping for more control.
It doesn't come from being educated into a creature so specialized that they have no utility to themselves, but only to others. This makes you a pet, whose only hope for survival is to remain pleasing. It also requires you to surrender both your youth, your legacy and your children to the system that is moulding you.
And it sure as hell doesn't come from being one of the wage slaves, which is what most people in the West are. Those are the people who chase Hollywood illusions with such determination, in an effort to escape from the reality of their lives.
If you value your future and the future of your children, you should shoot the capitalists in the head and start looking at ways you can bring some democracy into the economic systems you already have.
It is natural for human beings to self-organize into regimented hierarchies when they are under threat of death. It is wise to do so in those circumstances. So, who can we blame for the people following Stalin? We can blame ourselves.
Considering that Tibet and the Dali Lama have a history of abuse that would turn most peoples stomach, I find it kind of ironic that we hold them up as a superior alternative to the Chinese, who are investing a great deal into improving the quality of life in the region.
The people of Tibet suffered absolute slavery at the hands of the Dali Lama. People were permanently and systematically maimed. The regime was propped up by the CIA as a way to create unrest in Asia, and the Dali Lama has been engaged in a propaganda campaign for decades.
Hell, their religion, which so many hipsters are embracing these days as a way to find inner peace, is all about absolute submission and a rejection of the worth and integrity of the self. The peace of the conquered who have surrendered all hope isn't something to aspire to.
If you value a free society made up of actively participating and well informed members, seeing your neighbours embracing this sort of perspective should scare you. Evil leaders achievements can only be realized with a vast army of sheeple, and Tibetan Buddhism is all about turning people into sheeple so they can be wielded in a fashion that gives them neither dignity nor respect.
Yes, it really is that simple. Just because something is simple doesn't mean it's easy. A lot of times, it's more work than we would like to put in, and more people get screwed because they tried to take shortcuts than not. Doesn't change the underlying principles.
You are taking the perspective that commodification is driven by the perceptions of the market. But it really isn't. It's driven by the realities of the manufacturing process, and the realities of the purpose to which the product in question is to be placed.
In the world of computing, those things are in a constant state of flux, and items become unfit for purpose very rapidly. Something like a CD-ROM perhaps, where the physical realities preclude increasing the performance and the purpose is sharply defined.
Not much point in arguing further though. You clearly think that the computing market is mature. I would say it's more reminiscent of the guild wars of the mercantile age.
It's not a metaphor. There's a difference between a physical commodity upon which there is a stable market exchange (wheat, sugar, etc. as you reference) and commoditized products. Commodity products are the result of a loss of market exclusivity, marked by mature and functionally equivalent goods competing, for the most part, solely on price.
The "functionally equivalent" part is the only thing that makes it a commodity. The rest of your statement simply describes things that are common when something is a commodity. Generic drugs are a commodity. Certain types of standardized chips are commodities. Video cards, PCs, these are not commodities.
This stage occurs with the loss of brand value (i.e. people no longer care whether they buy Dell or HP as long as it does what they want for the best price, with the obvious exception of brand loyalists, which are present in every market segment) and mass availability. The latter is usually marked by prices that fall under the average household's weekly disposable income. They become goods which do not require an investment. This magic barrier is in the $450 range. It also spells the end of premium margins for the entire class (but not necessarily for all participants--upmarket goods can still exist after commoditization, e.g. Apple, Starbucks).
This is nonsense. Pure, unadulterated nonsense. The cost of sugar is rising, but it is still a commodity. The cost of gold and platinum are very high, but they are still commodities. Paper tissues of specific weight and size were commodities long before the Kleenex brand became a genericized trademark.
Fixed worth is not a requirement for a commodity. Relatively stable worth is not even required. Goods with value retention are selected for commodity exchanges. They are not the only commodities. Paper towels are a commodity, but as far as I know, there is not an active market exchange for them.
Where did you get the implication that commodities have a fixed worth? You didn't get it from me. They have a variable worth. They have a fixed utility, which is what makes them completely and utterly interchangeable, without any consequences whatsoever. That's what makes them commodities.when something is a commodity, it doesn't get obsolete
This is simply not true. Commodities are persistent as a group, but individual goods are subject to consumption and decay. The computer market is not obsolete--individual computers can be. Even markets eventually fall into obsolescence. Whale oil, anyone?
What does "they get used up" or "they rot with improper storage" have to do with the conversation at hand? You do have a point in that entire classes of commodities can become superseded by new and different commodities, but it doesn't change the fact that for a piece of computer hardware to be a commodity, it must be completely a black box, interchangeable with others of its type with absolutely zero consequence. If there is any differentiation, any consequence, then it's not a commodity. RAM chips are a commodity. Computers are not.
Refusing to be led into a position where other people have leverage over you, even if there is a short term gain that you are missing out on, is not spite. It's wisdom.
It's the sort of wisdom that lets you avoid having an old crufty box sitting in the corner running DOS because you got yourself into a situation where your deeply entrenched organizational structure depends on software that is not under your control, and it won't run on anything else. Know a few people whose ongoing job is to grapple with that situation.
Oh, and when something is a commodity, it doesn't get obsolete, and it doesn't change. It's matured beyond the point of being an evolving product. Iron ore, coal, sugar, these are commodities. Inasmuch as your hardware becomes worthless because it grows obsolete, it is not a commodity.
When people talk about "commodity computer hardware", they're using the word commodity as a metaphor, to illustrate a comparison to other, more specialized hardware. Computer hardware is not actually a commodity.
Sometimes it's about usability, not evangelism.
Some people (like those who hate the nvidia binary drivers) would be much better off if they'd just learn that.
Like when Linus makes a change in the way the kernel works, and the nvidia drivers break, and no one can fix them? Is this the usability you're referring to?
You can't have usability when someone else is in control and they're not interested in your problems. It's really that simple.
It's pretty easy to get it working if they're both connected to one card and you're using the proprietary drivers for that one card. Trying to get two or three screens with a PCIe/AGP and a secondary PCI card or integrated graphics where they aren't from the same vendor is a beat your head off the wall kind of experience.
So what? There are billions of gallons of oil in the ground. That doesn't mean that it scales out.
Solar energy collection is great, when you've got a ton of land you're not using. But you get diminishing returns as you grow. You start using land that's almost useless, then land that's not critical, then you hit the wall.
If you do everything in space, and you have a mechanism to move that power from space to the earth, that doesn't happen. You can grow, and grow, and grow, endlessly.
Consider the amount of effort that is plowed into space programs and military programs. Now, consider that there is absolutely no practical utility directly returned from those programs. There are spill-over effects, they push the state of the art in a whole host of different areas as they tackle these technical obstacles, but at the end of the day, putting an installation on the moon for scientific research isn't going to feed the hungry.
This project should supplant those projects. It is a feasible way to completely decouple our energy generation from our environment and it presents a path for our species to grow to the capacity of this world and beyond. There is no greater prize.
If it scales out indefinitely, we can use it as the power source for the earth, without having to clutter up the landscape with small scale enterprises. We can bring the promise of custom fabrication to everyone on earth, and push centralization out from the manufacturing level to the resource gathering level.
I expect this will be the engineering project that unifies the people of the earth, similar to the railroads and highways that were the foundation of many nations both ancient and modern. The creation and maintenance of such a project is a fitting purpose for a world government. If it's not already underway by the time I'm in my late 40s, I intend to make this my political platform and try to organize it myself. Beats smelling the roses.
Is there enough material on the face of the earth to construct a Dyson sphere? Oh, and just to ask that question, I had to dig through three layers of ridiculousness. Are you sure you're not after a sci-fi forum?
I didn't suggest we should try to build a Dyson sphere. The point is that we would not run out of space to scale out our energy collection infrastructure. This is not a daydream, it is a practical and feasible plan to implement in the real world, right now, with current technology.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem?
The difference between the rich and the poor is greater than ever, and power over the unwilling must be maintained through security.
The solution?
There isn't a solution that is satisfactory to current decision makers who hold the power. The less a system suits its participants, the more the enforcement cost. This escalates until a system becomes untenable.
The solution is to re-engineer the economic system, to prevent people from having the capability of getting so rich that poor people feel they are better off attacking or exploiting the system than they are living within its boundaries.
That is going to require a revolution. There will be blood.
Money greases the cogs of governance, to be sure. But, more people than ever have money nowadays. Maybe political scientists can recognize the new breed of "democracy" we've formed in the Washingtonian super collider of... bad metaphors. You get my point.
That is a problem for sure. Can't have too many people owning too much money or everything gets screwed up. But there is a solution. The solution is to have the Federal Reserve print off a whole bunch more, then dole it out through the old boys network. Inside a couple of years, you have something like what happened to Russia, where the plutocrats own everything and the cash a person slaved their life away for goes into a wheelbarrow to buy bread with. So, don't fret. The solution is being implemented this very moment.
Dude, they're not "for the little guy". The parent was right.
Patents were crafted by people who accept capitalism and competition as inviolate principles, and wish to prevent the sort of secret hoarding that defined the guilds of the Mercantile age.
There was once a time where if you wanted to learn secret knowledge, you had to join a secret society. If you were in the secret society, you couldn't leave and practice or share, because the law prevented you from doing so.
The point of patents was to force secret societies to reveal their secrets if they wanted the law to continue to validate and enforce their control. If you didn't reveal the secret, you couldn't ask the cops to go shut that guy down, but if you did, you could.
This would be better realized in the modern age by making transparency of process a requirement to enter the market, period. We already have safety inspectors whose approval you must win to enter the market, so it's not like this would be a novel invasion of privacy or freedom that didn't exist before.
In one sentence, you state that you're aware of the truth of my statements and the dangers they place us all in. In the next, you demand that I prove the truth of my statements, and compare me to Bozo the Clown.
You're a moron.
How about "When people fight tooth and nail instead of co-operating, everything gets all fucked up."
The problem is the capitalist structure.
Patents were originally created to overcome an inherent and nasty flaw in the capitalist structure.
They were a band-aid, trying to fix the fact that the structure creates an inherent motivation to be the biggest fish in the pond by killing other fish rather than trying to be the best fish you can be and celebrating the success of your neighbour as he enriches your community.
As we scale up, the "eat your neighbour" systems problems become worse.
Ok, you don't like the word conspiracy. You're too propagandized, and it makes you think of crackpots. How about this.
I'm telling you that there is an open collaboration among the people who exercise monopoly control over the tech industry, with the goal of giving them total information control and selling that total information control to governments and corporations. The technology is not a secret, and it is embedded in modern computers, and in set top boxes, and in playback devices. It is functional, and Vista is made to work with it. Which is why it took so long to get working, and why it works so slowly.
This is not a secret. However, there are a legion of people like you, trying to spin it into irrelevance. But at the end of the day, your arguments amount to "So What? You're a poopy-head!"
We've all got problems. Some of us see them before they roll over us, and most don't. You don't.
If you're claiming that Vista is a diabolical conspiracy to take over the world, I think that proves my point about the inevitability of cock-up triumphing over conspiracy.
Dude, Microsoft is the result of a diabolical conspiracy to take over the world. That's not a secret, it's a modern legend.
Honestly, what world do you come from? It must be nice there....
The power of trusted computing:
Worried about the illegal acts your company has been engaged in being leaked to the public? Trusted computing can make it impossible.
Hospital behind on their software payments after those budget cutbacks and the legal system won't help you enforce? Shut them off at the push of a button.
Someone at a news agency release information that compromises the governments position? Revoke the signature key, now it will not play even if someone does try to redistribute. Censorship after the fact.
They put the hardware on everyones desktops quite some time ago, just needs the right software support. That is what Vista is. It'll also be embedded in every set-top box after transitioning everyone away from analog television.
Now, imagine you were a powerful government or among the richest companies on earth, and someone approached you and offered to bring this scheme to reality. How much would that be worth to you? Billions? A place in the regime? All of the above?
Connect the dots.
The general population will not believe this is happening until the pieces are all in place. They can't. It's too big, and it means discarding everything you thought you knew about the way the world works. But it's still happening nevertheless.
The end user? Show them something flashy and keep dropping the price. Get it out there into the market at all costs. Do it while you've still got the influence to pull it off.
Maybe Ballmer can re-invent himself as a caber tosser after his company collapses. I understand he's good at throwing heavy things, and he's definitely a tosser...
Capitalism isn't going to fix your culture. It's going to migrate the power from those who have a duty to wield it properly (which they may or may not ignore) to those who have no duty to serve anyone but themselves. It's not going to decentralize it and give more power to the people, but rather create an environment where there is nothing objectionable about using that power purely to serve itself.
I envy you your culture. I consider the possibility that you might establish a democracy without surrendering your economic system to be the greatest hope for the human race. If you end up like us, with a meaningless sham of a democracy and an economic system that leaves everyone as slaves to oligarchs, you'll find that your people are estranged from the means by which their livelihood is preserved, divided against each other, and abused in a way that makes your current system look like a primitive paradise.
The people of the West are not happy people, and they are not well treated people. They are a sterile and harried people, divorced from everything that gives meaning to a humans life in their struggle to survive at the expense of their neighbour. The end result of our cultural changes in the last century is a world full of too many elderly and too few young. Our economics see to it that those who ended up most divorced from the cycle of life hold all the power and control. Parents are suffering deprivation while their children care for the childless in an effort to make enough money to keep themselves alive. More than half the work force is ready to retire. Soon there will be an utter collapse of this society, and there will be nothing left to show we were here but rust stains on the dirt where great buildings once stood.
Our only hope is to steal and enslave your young because we have none of our own, and we have immigration policies in place that clearly confirm this.
You really, really do not want this for yourself.
If you are wise, you will aspire to a system that preserves a community involvement in all the aspects of your society that are essential, removes arbitrary government powers that are non-essential from the books, fills the positions with a real democratic system rather than the party style politics and the cronyism they bring.
Happiness comes from understanding and being directly involved in the means by which your safety is preserved, and having the liberty to decide what your remaining personal time will be used for.
It doesn't come from having riches and people to care for you. All that brings is the fear of how to live if they ever should stop, and a desperate grasping for more control.
It doesn't come from being educated into a creature so specialized that they have no utility to themselves, but only to others. This makes you a pet, whose only hope for survival is to remain pleasing. It also requires you to surrender both your youth, your legacy and your children to the system that is moulding you.
And it sure as hell doesn't come from being one of the wage slaves, which is what most people in the West are. Those are the people who chase Hollywood illusions with such determination, in an effort to escape from the reality of their lives.
If you value your future and the future of your children, you should shoot the capitalists in the head and start looking at ways you can bring some democracy into the economic systems you already have.
That's a really smart idea. Someone mod this guy up.
It is natural for human beings to self-organize into regimented hierarchies when they are under threat of death. It is wise to do so in those circumstances. So, who can we blame for the people following Stalin? We can blame ourselves.
Considering that Tibet and the Dali Lama have a history of abuse that would turn most peoples stomach, I find it kind of ironic that we hold them up as a superior alternative to the Chinese, who are investing a great deal into improving the quality of life in the region.
The people of Tibet suffered absolute slavery at the hands of the Dali Lama. People were permanently and systematically maimed. The regime was propped up by the CIA as a way to create unrest in Asia, and the Dali Lama has been engaged in a propaganda campaign for decades.
Hell, their religion, which so many hipsters are embracing these days as a way to find inner peace, is all about absolute submission and a rejection of the worth and integrity of the self. The peace of the conquered who have surrendered all hope isn't something to aspire to.
If you value a free society made up of actively participating and well informed members, seeing your neighbours embracing this sort of perspective should scare you. Evil leaders achievements can only be realized with a vast army of sheeple, and Tibetan Buddhism is all about turning people into sheeple so they can be wielded in a fashion that gives them neither dignity nor respect.
They're no better than Scientologists.
Yes, it really is that simple. Just because something is simple doesn't mean it's easy. A lot of times, it's more work than we would like to put in, and more people get screwed because they tried to take shortcuts than not. Doesn't change the underlying principles.
You are taking the perspective that commodification is driven by the perceptions of the market. But it really isn't. It's driven by the realities of the manufacturing process, and the realities of the purpose to which the product in question is to be placed.
In the world of computing, those things are in a constant state of flux, and items become unfit for purpose very rapidly. Something like a CD-ROM perhaps, where the physical realities preclude increasing the performance and the purpose is sharply defined.
Not much point in arguing further though. You clearly think that the computing market is mature. I would say it's more reminiscent of the guild wars of the mercantile age.
It's not a metaphor. There's a difference between a physical commodity upon which there is a stable market exchange (wheat, sugar, etc. as you reference) and commoditized products. Commodity products are the result of a loss of market exclusivity, marked by mature and functionally equivalent goods competing, for the most part, solely on price.
The "functionally equivalent" part is the only thing that makes it a commodity. The rest of your statement simply describes things that are common when something is a commodity. Generic drugs are a commodity. Certain types of standardized chips are commodities. Video cards, PCs, these are not commodities.
This stage occurs with the loss of brand value (i.e. people no longer care whether they buy Dell or HP as long as it does what they want for the best price, with the obvious exception of brand loyalists, which are present in every market segment) and mass availability. The latter is usually marked by prices that fall under the average household's weekly disposable income. They become goods which do not require an investment. This magic barrier is in the $450 range. It also spells the end of premium margins for the entire class (but not necessarily for all participants--upmarket goods can still exist after commoditization, e.g. Apple, Starbucks).
This is nonsense. Pure, unadulterated nonsense. The cost of sugar is rising, but it is still a commodity. The cost of gold and platinum are very high, but they are still commodities. Paper tissues of specific weight and size were commodities long before the Kleenex brand became a genericized trademark.
Fixed worth is not a requirement for a commodity. Relatively stable worth is not even required. Goods with value retention are selected for commodity exchanges. They are not the only commodities. Paper towels are a commodity, but as far as I know, there is not an active market exchange for them.
Where did you get the implication that commodities have a fixed worth? You didn't get it from me. They have a variable worth. They have a fixed utility, which is what makes them completely and utterly interchangeable, without any consequences whatsoever. That's what makes them commodities.when something is a commodity, it doesn't get obsolete This is simply not true. Commodities are persistent as a group, but individual goods are subject to consumption and decay. The computer market is not obsolete--individual computers can be. Even markets eventually fall into obsolescence. Whale oil, anyone?
What does "they get used up" or "they rot with improper storage" have to do with the conversation at hand? You do have a point in that entire classes of commodities can become superseded by new and different commodities, but it doesn't change the fact that for a piece of computer hardware to be a commodity, it must be completely a black box, interchangeable with others of its type with absolutely zero consequence. If there is any differentiation, any consequence, then it's not a commodity. RAM chips are a commodity. Computers are not.
I'm referring to an article linked to off the Linus releases 2.6.25 Kernel article on the front page of the site, today.
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/open/Kernel-log-Proprietary-Linux-drivers-stumble-and-spark-debate--/news/110234
Several great examples there.
Refusing to be led into a position where other people have leverage over you, even if there is a short term gain that you are missing out on, is not spite. It's wisdom.
It's the sort of wisdom that lets you avoid having an old crufty box sitting in the corner running DOS because you got yourself into a situation where your deeply entrenched organizational structure depends on software that is not under your control, and it won't run on anything else. Know a few people whose ongoing job is to grapple with that situation.
Oh, and when something is a commodity, it doesn't get obsolete, and it doesn't change. It's matured beyond the point of being an evolving product. Iron ore, coal, sugar, these are commodities. Inasmuch as your hardware becomes worthless because it grows obsolete, it is not a commodity.
When people talk about "commodity computer hardware", they're using the word commodity as a metaphor, to illustrate a comparison to other, more specialized hardware. Computer hardware is not actually a commodity.
Sometimes it's about usability, not evangelism. Some people (like those who hate the nvidia binary drivers) would be much better off if they'd just learn that.
Like when Linus makes a change in the way the kernel works, and the nvidia drivers break, and no one can fix them? Is this the usability you're referring to?
You can't have usability when someone else is in control and they're not interested in your problems. It's really that simple.
It's pretty easy to get it working if they're both connected to one card and you're using the proprietary drivers for that one card. Trying to get two or three screens with a PCIe/AGP and a secondary PCI card or integrated graphics where they aren't from the same vendor is a beat your head off the wall kind of experience.
Avoid it always.
I've *never* liked Jobs but I recognize his effectiveness over the years and respect him for it.
How do you feel about Pol Pot?
So what? There are billions of gallons of oil in the ground. That doesn't mean that it scales out.
Solar energy collection is great, when you've got a ton of land you're not using. But you get diminishing returns as you grow. You start using land that's almost useless, then land that's not critical, then you hit the wall.
If you do everything in space, and you have a mechanism to move that power from space to the earth, that doesn't happen. You can grow, and grow, and grow, endlessly.
Consider the amount of effort that is plowed into space programs and military programs. Now, consider that there is absolutely no practical utility directly returned from those programs. There are spill-over effects, they push the state of the art in a whole host of different areas as they tackle these technical obstacles, but at the end of the day, putting an installation on the moon for scientific research isn't going to feed the hungry.
This project should supplant those projects. It is a feasible way to completely decouple our energy generation from our environment and it presents a path for our species to grow to the capacity of this world and beyond. There is no greater prize.
If it scales out indefinitely, we can use it as the power source for the earth, without having to clutter up the landscape with small scale enterprises. We can bring the promise of custom fabrication to everyone on earth, and push centralization out from the manufacturing level to the resource gathering level.
I expect this will be the engineering project that unifies the people of the earth, similar to the railroads and highways that were the foundation of many nations both ancient and modern. The creation and maintenance of such a project is a fitting purpose for a world government. If it's not already underway by the time I'm in my late 40s, I intend to make this my political platform and try to organize it myself. Beats smelling the roses.
Is there enough material on the face of the earth to construct a Dyson sphere? Oh, and just to ask that question, I had to dig through three layers of ridiculousness. Are you sure you're not after a sci-fi forum?
I didn't suggest we should try to build a Dyson sphere. The point is that we would not run out of space to scale out our energy collection infrastructure. This is not a daydream, it is a practical and feasible plan to implement in the real world, right now, with current technology.