Benefit of the Economic Crisis?

[HarryStottle]

jeez

I really must learn to save my fucking work before closing the damn page. Must have done that at least half a dozen times in the past couple of months and it's extremely annoying. Unlike any half decent word processor, the phpbb software doesn't ask if you want to save your last couple of hours work. When you close that page, it's dead and gone!

/rant off

"even ground" doesn't quite do it. Sounds like your groping for "level playing field" which, in the vernacular, means (roughly) "fair competition". I think what you're trying to say is that "we're singing from the same hymn sheet" which, despite its quaint religious overtones, captures the notion of "agreement".

I like "timbered together" but, again, that isn't a phrase we would recognise. Until I read the book "Kluge" I always spelt it "cludge" which is how it's pronounced. What does it mean? I think "patched rather than fixed" just about covers it. As a programmer, I write frequent cludges into my own software (and I've identified thousands in other people's software). Typically I use them when someone identifies a bug and I don't have time to trace the root cause, so I write a trap to deal with it, in the hope that, at some later date, we'll undo the cludge, allow the system to fail, trace and fix the real cause. But we all know that many hundreds of popular commercial programs are, even today, "timbered together" with thousands of cludges...

Nope, I don't think I've seen the ET video. Remind me of the url...

Distribution of Wealth v Distribution of Income
Meanwhile, back on topic, one thing I'd add to my previous, in case it's not obvious. I draw a major distinction between distribution of wealth and distribution of income. The fairness issue arises, for me, on the latter rather than the former.

Most of us rely on income to keep the wolf from the door and Society has a vested interest in ensuring that none of its members are forced to "prey" on their neighbours to obtain whatever it is they need to survive. Not only does such behaviour damage communities, it necessitates a high economic cost in policing, prison and other punitive systems, which, in turn, justify higher taxes and, thus, like the American system, turn out to be a dramatically "false economy"

This constitutes both a pragmatic and ethical basis for a minimum wage (or, more generally, "provision of minimum survival resources").

Given that baseline, however, my own ethical view is that you cannot reasonably justify valuing the social and economic value of any human being as being hundreds of times greater than another. (with one notable exception) Not only does that imply a huge distortion in social values, but allowing one individual to withdraw from the global income pot, the equivalent of what several hundred less valued individuals are permitted must also, inevitably, reduce the size of the pot available to deal with the lowest valued individuals. Which then forces us back into the need to prevent the poor stealing from the rich with expensive policing and so on. What constitutes reasonable differentials, however, is a classic democratic issue because there is and can be no obvious "right answer".

The notable exception is "show biz". When a rock star or footballer is attracting 100,000 fans to their "performance" and those fans are paying voluntarily, then one cannot make an ethical argument against the star benefitting from those voluntary contributions. Their "donations" are as democratic as it comes.

But, quite separately from income, we have wealth - which can arise from various sources including, of course, income. Wealth obtained by seizure or theft, is indefensible (despite which most of our property laws defend it - try getting America back to it's original owners and see how far you get!)

But if you and I both earn, say, the average wage, for the duration of our working lives. And you manage to survive comfortably on 2/3 of it, saving the other 1/3 for your retirement; while I spend every penny I get, then when we get to age 70 and you're able to move to a comfortable villa on the coast and I'm forced to live in cheap urban social housing, there are no ethical grounds on which I can complain about your greater wealth!

[Stone1]

All right, we're singing from the same hymn sheet then, I quite like that wording - it sounds like having some nice patina to it. And patched rather than fixed is a concept I fully understand, too.

The income/wealth difference I also go along with, that's pretty obvious. But if you save, let's say 1/10 of your monthly income, you have at least the chance to move to a country with lower overall living costs as a retiree, though I concede you'd most probably have to learn a foreign language in that case .

I also agree with the Pop/Rock/Film star concept, or rather art in general. Although there's abysses lurking beneath vulgo media companies, but that's a different story.

For the scifi-video, just take a look at your very own forum, good sir! I posted it here. There's also a humble moderation issue adressed to you.

Oh and yes, I feel compassionate about your rant, often when I'm entering text in the browser (e.g. when posting a blog comment) and then there's an issue with the server during upload, the damn text gets lost.
I had a rather comfortable solution installed (some Windows widget for the clipboard, which saves all copied data chronologically, so when the text's ready just ctrl-c it before submitting and then you have an easy backup (100 entries) in case it gets lost), so the next thing I'll do is reinstall this on my rather freshly installed Windows Seven (no Microsoft, I'll skip Win 8 and also 8.1. There's nothing in it for my desktop, I don't fucking want a Microsoft account and the only security-relevant improvement are the integrated Security Essentials, which is no more than a small free virus scanner. And the modified Task Manager isn't so great either, Sysinternals' process monitor does the job even better).
So much for my own ranting. You can get the Clipboarder here if you want to give it a try, Harry.

[HarryStottle]

just viewed and commented on the video in the apt place.

Have downloaded the gadget pack, mainly because I like the look of some of the gadgets. I already have a handy clipboard store (Turbonotes) but the problem is "forgetting to use it".

The real issue is a phpbb design flaw. When I'm blogging, Wordpress won't allow you to leave or close a freshly created/edited page without warning you of the consequences (which has saved my bacon a couple of times). That proves it's possible to provide such protection "in browser" so we just need the phpbb team to get around to it. I should post something on their support forum.

And actually that reminds me of the other design flaw. The one that prevents me (or anyone else) being notified of new posts on my own forum (which is why I wasn't aware of your video post). Even though I make a point of checking, when I log in, for "new posts", nothing alerted me to yours. We only get notified of replies to posts we've participated in...

[Stone1]

[Stone1]

Addendum:

Here's the election outcome in detail along with some other info for those who are interested in Austria:
And if someone wants to know more about the, hmm how to say it, 'notorious' (no offense intended) Miss Lindner, read here:
The entry has already been updated including her 2013 political 'activities'.

[HarryStottle]

just for the record: I note the the "12:1" limit. Bah humbug!

[Stone1]

Too bad, I took note of the result yesterday, too. I guess the initiative was not worked out very well in detail, and it was only supported by the social party, the greens and the labor union - having the combined power of all other parties, the trade association and the entrepreneurs associations with their money and marketing assets (a facebook group amongst other things) against them. I guess the outcome was in part due to information bias. Sincerely, just the salaries of a handful of managers would have been cut down to a rational amount. They could have continued to earn as much extra cash as they wanted via investing their wealth in whatever stack or shares they like. They are super-qualified top-managers, after all! They have a huge advantage over all small standard investors. I could rage on some more here, but against the international climatic trend winter has made the first strike today in my whereabouts and I'm getting tired...

What we could maybe learn from this example (at least those who didn't realize it yet): the internet is a perfect tool for mass manipulation, and those in power have quickly learned how to use it. Don't know if I already mentioned it, the fictional novels of illustrate that topic and other dangers of the very near future in a thrilling way.

[HarryStottle]

That Daniel Suarez link looks tempting. Your one paragraph review of, say, "Freedom"?

The underclass have a long history of supporting policies which result in their own oppression: Turkeys voting for Christmas. My online persona "Ragged Trousered Philosopher" is my own genuflection towards one of the greatest books in the English language which illustrates the problem in painful detail. Robert (Noonan)Tressell wrote The as an "insider" just over a century ago. After leaving South Africa, where he taught Art, the only work he could get in this country was as a painter and decorator.

He spent the rest of his life in that condition and his "escape" was to write the novel which portrays the lives and beliefs of the men he worked with and the downtrodden conditions in which they laboured. No amount of political discussion or education could persuade the majority of his fellow workers to understand how Capitalism exploited them or to support, for example, the working class political movements like the Trade Unions and the emerging Labour Party. He and fellow socialists could not dent the authoritian conditioning his colleagues had been subject to all their lives.

He died as miserably like many of the characters in his own book, of "consumption" (TB) in his humble home; unsung and unknown. The manuscript of his book was rejected by 3 publishers during his lifetime and his daughter had to prevent him burning it in despair. She managed to get it published in 1914, 3 years after his death.

If you have a Kindle, you can . If you haven't, the paperback only costs a couple of quid. Strongly recommended.

[Stone1]

Damn I've contracted some kind of inflammation in both elbows (that's a nuisance for a wheelchairer like me), so I shouldn't be typing too much, but it's at least less painful than patrolling around the flat like a caged wolf

Daemon and Freedom (which is titled "Darknet" in the german version) are two parts of one story. You should read both, they are around 400 pages each and well written thrillers, so it's hard to put them away. It took me less than a week to read each (about 2 hours per day). And for (I)Technophiles like us they are practically a must-read. While these first two novels deal mainly with the internet, social networks and the financial system, a super-hero like avatar (don't panic, he's perfectly integrated into the storyline without breaking natural laws nor logic) and an emerging artificial intelligence, "Kill Decision" is mainly about the implications of drone warfaring and global mass manipulation. Seemingly a 4th book is planned for 2014, I'm curious whether Suarez continues the story of "Kill Decision" - there's no real cliffhanger at the end, but much room for expansion of the characters.

I can practically guarantee that if you start with "Daemon", you'll not regret it. One of the most gripping books I've read during the last three years.

Coincidentally I've bought myself a 7 inch tablet on monday (my birthday present from myself, thank you I had a fine celebration and some nice presents) - but ATM my wife has got her hands on it playing (Star Wars) Angry Birds. Much fun! I've already downed by Charles Stross, which is also available for free (as in DRM-free epub) - edit: a side question: did you mention something about the technical singularity in your own work? - , and the sister of my wife, who works in the publishing business, sent me a bag of books some weeks ago, too. So I've got reading material in abundance but when I've sorted that out, I'll have a glimpse at your recommendation.
Uhm, I just looked it up at the amazon site, and it seems not completely free of charge, and I don't know if my android tablet can handle that kindle format, I suspect that's a proprietary format, so I'll look for a DRM-free epub edition of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

By the way, the new Asterix comic is really good fun compared to the last five or six issues, the new team did a good job at their first album. Don't know if it's proper for a Brit to read a french comic, but if you haven't yet, you should give it a chance.

[HarryStottle]

First the serious shit. Read my blog from last year, including the comments which go on to discuss diet. It might well be relevant to your condition (inflammatory responses nearly always arise from the ph problem). My diet (particularly, I think, the daily pint of tomato juice) has kept me gout free for over two years now.

Just had a thought about your potential typing difficulties. Have you tried Dragon Speech Recognition? I have. I'm up to version 11 atmo but I remain disappointed. I probably don't have the patience to train it well enough to meet my needs but with your current difficulties you might be sufficiently motivated to force it to co-operate. I've given up on it so if you like, you can have my copy to try out.

Just bought the kindle edition of Daemon. At £1.26, I decided it was worth the risk!

Dunno what you're seeing on the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists offering, but it was definitely priced as 0.00 for me. Perhaps its differently priced in different countries?

Asterix has always had a strong following the the UK but I've never got into it myself. It's like "South Park", I watch the occasional episode and find it funny but not funny enough to make me seek out the next one...

On Kindle readers, I've just (yesterday) made a breakthrough. Discovered the Kindle Reader for PC app you can download so you can read your kindle collection on whatever device suits. That was interesting but not the best bit. For the few years I've owned a Kindle, the one complaint I've had is that, despite being a digital format and despite the fact that you can annotate and highlight the content (which, being a writer/researcher, I tend to do a lot) you can't cut and paste, so if you want to quote significant chunks from various authors, the only way to do it is retyping which is a pain in the arse, or, in your case, elbows.

So, given I could now read my kindle stuff on PC, I figured I'd be able at least capture images of the relevant text and that perhaps OCR software could do the rest and, to cut long story short, after trying a few, I found which is absolutely brilliant.
a) no installation. Just put the files where you want them. Doubleclick the exe, set preferences using the icon in the sys tray. Using it is very simple but NOT intuitive so read the instructions carefully.
b) no cost (FOSS)
c) works with (so far) 100% accuracy instanteously. The only thing it loses are line breaks.

So now I can start peppering my papers with even more direct quotes, which makes me a happy bunny.

Oh, and belated birthday greetments to you. Hope you were a happy bunny too

[Stone1]

We're heading far into off topic territory again, so I've set up my own wordpress blog just to be able to comment on your Transhumanism and Gout article there.
I don't know if you get updated on new comments there, so if not, please read my answer over there.

I tried the W7 built-in speech recognition, but I dislike talking to my computer. Instead I rather listen to music while working. I'm on a diclofenac treatment atm and the pain is already fading away.

I learned reading as a child with the help of Asterix, so I stayed faithful to the series, although I wouldn't had Uderzo continued texting the comics himself.

On those e-reading formats, yes that missing highligthing function is a real pain in the arse - taking away one main advantage of digital reading and researching. Thanks for the Capture2Text recommendation!

Happy bunny want

[HarryStottle]

we have indeed strayed wildly off topic. I have replied to your blog comment on the blog!

[Stone1]

BTT
My blog reader came up with an interesting essay concerning topics we've discussed here.


It looks like something you might have written, though the original author is unknown. We talked about union and economy topics here, so I thought this article fits here nicely.
I guess it's not really news for us, Harry, but a good analysis of the situation.

As usual no comment from me without something off-topic:

My first selfmade Lolcat, crossing language boundaries