Fundamentally, Malthus was right. Exponential growth cannot continue indefinitely. At some point, resources will become limiting and exponential growth of human populations (and economies) will not be possible.
Conceptually, this seems logical, and yet, like the end of Moore's Law, we haven't seen it yet. Resources have to become limiting if our usage function of the resources has a constant return. If you add in the possibility of technology improving efficiency of the use of resources, it's not clear when we run into these limits.
Note, I am -not- advocating that we act as if Malthus was definitely wrong - the world will be a better place if we do limit population growth. I just think Malthus himself would be surprised about how we've thus far managed to psh the inevitable off into the future.
I think in all but the most ideal circumstances, it is indeed zero-sum game.
I think it should be palpably obvious that the obvious is true, from a simple examination of the world around you, and of history. If the economy (let's use the right term, economics is an area of study) of the world as a whole is a zero sum game, then wealth in the world could not consistently increase. And yet, for 100's of years, wealth has consistently increased, and has done so for virtually everyone in most economies. The common man in every significant economy of the world has generally enjoyed improved longevity, health, and material well being over his peer a hundred years ago (with the admitted exception of peoples that were conquered/colonized/displaced by foreign settlers). The major exceptions to this observation I think would be the inhabitants of countries where a non-market economy or non-functional market economy exists, such as North Korea and Somalia, or soviet russia, back in the day.
It's a falsehood, in my view, to attribute this to simple extraction of the Earth's minerals and to posit that growth must stop because peak oil is upon us or ??? While past extractive industries certainly were the source of some fortunes (Rockefeller, Weyerhauser, for example), the majority of modern fortunes come from some value added activity that is not focused on simple extractions. Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison all run mega businesses that have created wealth through organization of capital, people, and knowledge. I think it's a mistake to think that there is necessarily some end to the pattern we have seen repeated throughout modern history.
That said, Shumpeter observed that improvements in efficiency due to any innovation suffers a declining return over time, so we could reasonably expect the current software and computer business paradigms to slow in their progress. But growth need not stall.
He still believes that the content itself is what makes money i.e. selling newspapers....and he can then make a bit more by throwing advertising on top.
No, he believes what has been true for a long time with newspapers, that advertising is what makes money, and is doing what he can to retain his advertising franchise. His beef with Google is that it devalues his news as an advertising sales vehicle, and he is right, from his point of view, to do so.
The question is whether he can change the direction of the ocean liner that is internet based news content, and the search engine as primary delivery vehicle for the content. I think he'll have a spot of trouble doing that. The only thing he's got going for him is that his news customer base is likely the market segment least tuned into the internet and search.
Your job is important to them only insofar as it helps them do their job. Therefore, knowing what they need to know is key to structuring your communication. Most execs like a 'dashboard' style view that summarizes the current activity. You might suggest things like:
1) new customers added, canceling customers subtracted 2) system incidents in pass week and month, summarized by type and severity 3) Budget activity (expenses/month/year, against planned costs) 4) System activity of interest (unique customer visits, page views, complaints, support requests, etc)
In most of my jobs, I add a weekly status report that reports what I did last week, what I'm planning on doing this week, planned absences (vacations, etc) and finally, Issues Requiring Management Attention, which are the items that I need them to attend to. The status report becomes the agenda for my 1:1 with my manager.
I don't have any knowledge one way or the other, but I find it hard to believe that child porn is a big moneymaker. The risk and stakes are high, and the market is small. All the news articles I have read seem to indicate that kiddie porn is traded amongst the perps, rather than outright sold.
PCI guidelines require any business handling credit or debit card data to run AV and/or intrusion detection software, regardless of whether the system is a reasonable target for viruses. At my company, they make us install some ancient piece of IBM IDS crap, that requires python 1.9 to run. We can't update to a recent kernel (we're using SuSE 9.5, IIRC, which is believe is 2.6.19) because the IDS won't run on a newer kernel. That's right, we are not updating our kernels to take up some 20 various security fixes, because our security software won't run on it. But, damnit, we're running our IDS software.
People would say the business is not doing due diligence.
Minor nit, just so you don't say this to a manager type. "Due Diligence" usually refers to the process of properly checking out a deal or business arrangement, checking the truth and reasonableness of the assertions being made around the deal. You are "exercising due diligence in evaluating IBM's claims that DB2 can now read minds". I think you mean that the business is being negligent, or not taking the steps that a normal prudent person would be taking. Losing a customer's data due to a virus caused corruption of the system because your boss was allowed to turn off his AV so he could run LimeWire might be viewed as negligent.
Another bad car analogy: the problem is that computers are becoming like cars in Los Angeles. You have to use them to do what you want/need to to do, whether you know enough to drive safely or not, because the alternatives are really poor. Not using a computer isn't really a credible option anymore for any modern person who isn't a hermit. Even my 75 year old mother and 82 year old mother in law use a computer on a daily basis now. This imperative created by the culture is going to pull vast numbers of ignorant users into the mix, and it's naive, I fear, to expect them to assume the responsibility for getting themselves educated.
In my family, I have about a 1/4 time job as community sysadmin. I'm typing this on a freshly rebuilt windows machine. AVG didn't catch whatever got this one. I'd put linux on it, but ITunes and Rhapsody won't run on linux. I have simply taken the step of giving the kids a sacrificial machine, and resigning myself to a yearly rebuild.
Except that the user isn't interested in the wood, tape measure, or saw, he wants a table, and thought he bought one, thank you very much. Why does he have to know how the tape is made to put his plate on it?
Computers are somewhat unique in the level of awareness that a user has to have in order to use one safely. Unfortunately, for a lot of users, the difference between computers and magic is not apparent to them.
Entertainment is not a free market, in the sense of what you might call 'normal' capitalism. To compare to cars, a Honda Accord has close competition in the Toyota Camry. If the Accord is too expensive, customers will choose or substitute the Camry over the Accord. If an HP PC is too expensive, people will buy a Dell, and generally be satisfied. These products have specifications, and satisfy needs in measureable ways.
Most entertainment and software goods in contrast, have no substitute that the customer is interested in. If I want a Green Day American Idiot album, that is all I want. A Madonna album isn't going to satisfy me. Similarly with movies. When a blockbuster like Spiderman is released, it's all certain people want to see. The consumer doesn't usually have an acceptable substitute available.
This nature of entertainment is why Hollywood acts the way that they do. If you've got the product, you don't need to treat customers right, because the customers -will- pay anyway. Until the advent of digital copying, that is. That is changing the dynamic, and we shouldn't be surprised to find that business models and mindsets that have been in place for almost 100 years are slow to change.
I guess I'd have to disagree. We sent a few troops, but made no significant effort to interrupt the holocausts there were going on, and pretty much continued unabated. My recollection is that we sent something like 12,000 troops to Bosnia, and fewer to Somalia. None to Rwanda, none to post war Cambodia. If we are really serious that our purpose was/is to protect innocent civilians from internal warfare, we're not very consistent as to where we decide to do so.
My larger point is that a lot of really shitty things happen around the world, and we don't have the resources or ability to stop all, or even most of them. We made a loud noise about doing so in Iraq, and I think I wonder why there, why then? The only answer that I can come up with is that the location of the conflict, in the center of one of the largest oil producing regions of the world, made it seem like we had to invest in stability, so as to not interrupt the flow of commerce by interrupting the flow of oil.
Tactically, this appears to have proven to be a bad decision. It's not at all clear that the situation for the average Iraqi has improved, we certainly haven't improved our position with the Islamic militants, and we've spent ourself nearly into poverty, and continue to do so.
It's minorly interesting that it was the republicans that were stupid enough to start this, but I would feel exactly the same if it was the democrats. Stupid is stupid, and invading Iraq was stupid.
Hm-m-m. You might want to fiddle with your VNC connection. I run many VNC sessions over LAN/WAN combos. On LAN, it's as fast as console, as near as I can tell. On LAN/WAN, it's a bit sluggish, but quite usable. I often VNC from home, over comcrap, through the VPN, through the company netowrk, over a busy T1 to an office, to the machine I'm working on, and it's usable. Not stellar, but quite usable.
Microsoft has the money to buy the best techs. So it becomes a failure of management if they fail to do so.
So in the case of Microsoft I would say that blaming the management for failure is reasonable.
They hired David Cutler and Nathan Myhvold to name a couple. Are you asserting that they are not among the best techs? Got anything of your own you can offer up in comparison with them?
I didn't think so. Like most of the MSFT bashers, you'll download linux and pride yourself on your geek cred, parroting the bablings of the pack, without really understanding what goes into producing a consumer software product that runs on bazillions of computers.
Have you paid for your own insurance recently? Do you remember the part where the company asks you for your expected annual mileage, and the type of use (commuting, business, recreational, school)? It's on your statement. If you drive a lot, sure, it factors into your rate, but I'd be surprised if it isn't a more subtle calculation than you think. Truck drivers are among the safest drivers out there, and average a lot more miles than you do, and are overwhelmingly male. My personal insurance went down when I got a commercial driver's license way back when (when I was in my 20's).
Believe what you want. The math, publically available financial reports, Wall Street Journal, and public record indicate otherwise. If what you say is true, then the 10K for Progressive that I previously linked to should have a statement to that effect in the notes. I was unable to find it, though I didn't read it in detail.
All states have Commissions or Boards which review insurance and utility rates. When rates are under state regulation (not all rates are), the associated commissions are presented cases for rate adjustments, and rule on those presentations. The commissions make the decisions, not legislators. At least in Washington state, the laws state that the rates must be supported by costs, experience, and valid statistical analysis. A reasonable presentation of a rationale for rates is generally accepted. In the case of utility rates, my direct experience is that the commission is fairly naive. I was a product manager for a utility software project which was accepted into the rate base, and the board was pretty non-confrontational about whether our costs were reasonable.
That's naive. If an insurance company overprices risk, they'll lose the business. If they underprice the risk, they'll go broke. You're assuming that the folks building the risk models are stupid. That's not a high percentage assumption.
If what you assert is true, auto insurance companies should be making huge amounts of money. Here is the financials from Progressive insurance, a prominent player. They netted about 7%.
Hate them if you want. It's a competitive industry, and the numbers show that they're pricing the insurance at pretty close what it costs them to provide it.
Slashdot Mirror
That is just wrong, on so many levels...
Fundamentally, Malthus was right. Exponential growth cannot continue indefinitely. At some point, resources will become limiting and exponential growth of human populations (and economies) will not be possible.
Conceptually, this seems logical, and yet, like the end of Moore's Law, we haven't seen it yet. Resources have to become limiting if our usage function of the resources has a constant return. If you add in the possibility of technology improving efficiency of the use of resources, it's not clear when we run into these limits.
Note, I am -not- advocating that we act as if Malthus was definitely wrong - the world will be a better place if we do limit population growth. I just think Malthus himself would be surprised about how we've thus far managed to psh the inevitable off into the future.
I think in all but the most ideal circumstances, it is indeed zero-sum game.
I think it should be palpably obvious that the obvious is true, from a simple examination of the world around you, and of history. If the economy (let's use the right term, economics is an area of study) of the world as a whole is a zero sum game, then wealth in the world could not consistently increase. And yet, for 100's of years, wealth has consistently increased, and has done so for virtually everyone in most economies. The common man in every significant economy of the world has generally enjoyed improved longevity, health, and material well being over his peer a hundred years ago (with the admitted exception of peoples that were conquered/colonized/displaced by foreign settlers). The major exceptions to this observation I think would be the inhabitants of countries where a non-market economy or non-functional market economy exists, such as North Korea and Somalia, or soviet russia, back in the day.
It's a falsehood, in my view, to attribute this to simple extraction of the Earth's minerals and to posit that growth must stop because peak oil is upon us or ??? While past extractive industries certainly were the source of some fortunes (Rockefeller, Weyerhauser, for example), the majority of modern fortunes come from some value added activity that is not focused on simple extractions. Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison all run mega businesses that have created wealth through organization of capital, people, and knowledge. I think it's a mistake to think that there is necessarily some end to the pattern we have seen repeated throughout modern history.
That said, Shumpeter observed that improvements in efficiency due to any innovation suffers a declining return over time, so we could reasonably expect the current software and computer business paradigms to slow in their progress. But growth need not stall.
He still believes that the content itself is what makes money i.e. selling newspapers....and he can then make a bit more by throwing advertising on top.
No, he believes what has been true for a long time with newspapers, that advertising is what makes money, and is doing what he can to retain his advertising franchise. His beef with Google is that it devalues his news as an advertising sales vehicle, and he is right, from his point of view, to do so.
The question is whether he can change the direction of the ocean liner that is internet based news content, and the search engine as primary delivery vehicle for the content. I think he'll have a spot of trouble doing that. The only thing he's got going for him is that his news customer base is likely the market segment least tuned into the internet and search.
Your job is important to them only insofar as it helps them do their job. Therefore, knowing what they need to know is key to structuring your communication. Most execs like a 'dashboard' style view that summarizes the current activity. You might suggest things like:
1) new customers added, canceling customers subtracted
2) system incidents in pass week and month, summarized by type and severity
3) Budget activity (expenses/month/year, against planned costs)
4) System activity of interest (unique customer visits, page views, complaints, support requests, etc)
In most of my jobs, I add a weekly status report that reports what I did last week, what I'm planning on doing this week, planned absences (vacations, etc) and finally, Issues Requiring Management Attention, which are the items that I need them to attend to. The status report becomes the agenda for my 1:1 with my manager.
I ran the numbers when I did a low carb diet, and I was eating ~2500 cals a day. I lost weight readily at that rate.
That said, one of the benefits of a low carb diet is that you aren't as hungry. Fat and protein are more satisfying.
Citation, please.
I don't have any knowledge one way or the other, but I find it hard to believe that child porn is a big moneymaker. The risk and stakes are high, and the market is small. All the news articles I have read seem to indicate that kiddie porn is traded amongst the perps, rather than outright sold.
Um... wait a second. Did you just infer that Microsoft has a big, hard dick?
Ballmer is good for two out of three...
PCI guidelines require any business handling credit or debit card data to run AV and/or intrusion detection software, regardless of whether the system is a reasonable target for viruses. At my company, they make us install some ancient piece of IBM IDS crap, that requires python 1.9 to run. We can't update to a recent kernel (we're using SuSE 9.5, IIRC, which is believe is 2.6.19) because the IDS won't run on a newer kernel. That's right, we are not updating our kernels to take up some 20 various security fixes, because our security software won't run on it. But, damnit, we're running our IDS software.
People would say the business is not doing due diligence.
Minor nit, just so you don't say this to a manager type. "Due Diligence" usually refers to the process of properly checking out a deal or business arrangement, checking the truth and reasonableness of the assertions being made around the deal. You are "exercising due diligence in evaluating IBM's claims that DB2 can now read minds". I think you mean that the business is being negligent, or not taking the steps that a normal prudent person would be taking. Losing a customer's data due to a virus caused corruption of the system because your boss was allowed to turn off his AV so he could run LimeWire might be viewed as negligent.
Another bad car analogy: the problem is that computers are becoming like cars in Los Angeles. You have to use them to do what you want/need to to do, whether you know enough to drive safely or not, because the alternatives are really poor. Not using a computer isn't really a credible option anymore for any modern person who isn't a hermit. Even my 75 year old mother and 82 year old mother in law use a computer on a daily basis now. This imperative created by the culture is going to pull vast numbers of ignorant users into the mix, and it's naive, I fear, to expect them to assume the responsibility for getting themselves educated.
In my family, I have about a 1/4 time job as community sysadmin. I'm typing this on a freshly rebuilt windows machine. AVG didn't catch whatever got this one. I'd put linux on it, but ITunes and Rhapsody won't run on linux. I have simply taken the step of giving the kids a sacrificial machine, and resigning myself to a yearly rebuild.
Except that the user isn't interested in the wood, tape measure, or saw, he wants a table, and thought he bought one, thank you very much. Why does he have to know how the tape is made to put his plate on it?
Computers are somewhat unique in the level of awareness that a user has to have in order to use one safely. Unfortunately, for a lot of users, the difference between computers and magic is not apparent to them.
Entertainment is not a free market, in the sense of what you might call 'normal' capitalism. To compare to cars, a Honda Accord has close competition in the Toyota Camry. If the Accord is too expensive, customers will choose or substitute the Camry over the Accord. If an HP PC is too expensive, people will buy a Dell, and generally be satisfied. These products have specifications, and satisfy needs in measureable ways.
Most entertainment and software goods in contrast, have no substitute that the customer is interested in. If I want a Green Day American Idiot album, that is all I want. A Madonna album isn't going to satisfy me. Similarly with movies. When a blockbuster like Spiderman is released, it's all certain people want to see. The consumer doesn't usually have an acceptable substitute available.
This nature of entertainment is why Hollywood acts the way that they do. If you've got the product, you don't need to treat customers right, because the customers -will- pay anyway. Until the advent of digital copying, that is. That is changing the dynamic, and we shouldn't be surprised to find that business models and mindsets that have been in place for almost 100 years are slow to change.
I guess I'd have to disagree. We sent a few troops, but made no significant effort to interrupt the holocausts there were going on, and pretty much continued unabated. My recollection is that we sent something like 12,000 troops to Bosnia, and fewer to Somalia. None to Rwanda, none to post war Cambodia. If we are really serious that our purpose was/is to protect innocent civilians from internal warfare, we're not very consistent as to where we decide to do so.
My larger point is that a lot of really shitty things happen around the world, and we don't have the resources or ability to stop all, or even most of them. We made a loud noise about doing so in Iraq, and I think I wonder why there, why then? The only answer that I can come up with is that the location of the conflict, in the center of one of the largest oil producing regions of the world, made it seem like we had to invest in stability, so as to not interrupt the flow of commerce by interrupting the flow of oil.
Tactically, this appears to have proven to be a bad decision. It's not at all clear that the situation for the average Iraqi has improved, we certainly haven't improved our position with the Islamic militants, and we've spent ourself nearly into poverty, and continue to do so.
It's minorly interesting that it was the republicans that were stupid enough to start this, but I would feel exactly the same if it was the democrats. Stupid is stupid, and invading Iraq was stupid.
The genocide and torture being a couple reasons off top of my head.
Get some perspective, not everything is done for money alone, even if you're too blinded by ignorance to realize it.
Which is why we marched into Rwanda, Somalia, Bosnia, and post war Cambodia, right?
Wait, they didn't have oil...
Hm-m-m. You might want to fiddle with your VNC connection. I run many VNC sessions over LAN/WAN combos. On LAN, it's as fast as console, as near as I can tell. On LAN/WAN, it's a bit sluggish, but quite usable. I often VNC from home, over comcrap, through the VPN, through the company netowrk, over a busy T1 to an office, to the machine I'm working on, and it's usable. Not stellar, but quite usable.
Microsoft has the money to buy the best techs. So it becomes a failure of management if they fail to do so.
So in the case of Microsoft I would say that blaming the management for failure is reasonable.
They hired David Cutler and Nathan Myhvold to name a couple. Are you asserting that they are not among the best techs? Got anything of your own you can offer up in comparison with them?
I didn't think so. Like most of the MSFT bashers, you'll download linux and pride yourself on your geek cred, parroting the bablings of the pack, without really understanding what goes into producing a consumer software product that runs on bazillions of computers.
Have you paid for your own insurance recently? Do you remember the part where the company asks you for your expected annual mileage, and the type of use (commuting, business, recreational, school)? It's on your statement. If you drive a lot, sure, it factors into your rate, but I'd be surprised if it isn't a more subtle calculation than you think. Truck drivers are among the safest drivers out there, and average a lot more miles than you do, and are overwhelmingly male. My personal insurance went down when I got a commercial driver's license way back when (when I was in my 20's).
Believe what you want. The math, publically available financial reports, Wall Street Journal, and public record indicate otherwise. If what you say is true, then the 10K for Progressive that I previously linked to should have a statement to that effect in the notes. I was unable to find it, though I didn't read it in detail.
All states have Commissions or Boards which review insurance and utility rates. When rates are under state regulation (not all rates are), the associated commissions are presented cases for rate adjustments, and rule on those presentations. The commissions make the decisions, not legislators. At least in Washington state, the laws state that the rates must be supported by costs, experience, and valid statistical analysis. A reasonable presentation of a rationale for rates is generally accepted. In the case of utility rates, my direct experience is that the commission is fairly naive. I was a product manager for a utility software project which was accepted into the rate base, and the board was pretty non-confrontational about whether our costs were reasonable.
Adding more software to fix bugs ... introduces more bugs.
Is a debugger software?
Your general point is valid - increasing complexity allows for increasing entropy. But entropy can be locally reduced.
paff. People have been doing this with SuperZap on mainframe code for 30 years. Kids.
Now get off my lawn.
Link didn't take, see this.
That's naive. If an insurance company overprices risk, they'll lose the business. If they underprice the risk, they'll go broke. You're assuming that the folks building the risk models are stupid. That's not a high percentage assumption.
If what you assert is true, auto insurance companies should be making huge amounts of money. Here is the financials from Progressive insurance, a prominent player. They netted about 7%.
Hate them if you want. It's a competitive industry, and the numbers show that they're pricing the insurance at pretty close what it costs them to provide it.
But it does dump.
Nice postulate, have you demonstrated the first clause yet?