Archive for the ‘Internet and software’ Category

Why I’m not posting so frequently

September 11th, 2011 by Administrator

This is about software problems.  For some reason Firefox and Mint 10 KDE don’t get along, and after anywhere from many minutes to several hours the system locks up.  Leave it alone for 6, 8, 10 hours and it seems to recover, but I can’t usually spare the time.

So, while waiting for Mint 11 KDE, which one hopes will solve the problem, I’ve been using the Opera browser instead of Firefox.  Opera is very smooth, works very well except when it doesn’t.  And doesn’t is how it handles blanks in the WordPress visual editor.  Whichwouldresultinallthewordsrunningtogether.  So, for blogging, I switch back to Firefox.  All the while worrying whether I’ll get another freeze. What’s really discouraging is that neither the WordPress forum nor the Opera forum have offered any assistance.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Internet and software, Miscellaneous outrages | No Comments »

Heartland podcast seeks government action

June 11th, 2011 by Administrator

Heartland Institute publications and web pages usually position it as anti-government, or at least pro-less-government-than-we-have-now.  But their podcasts are a bit less controlled, sometimes just providing an interesting take on something we might not have thought about (There was a great one about “how much does the Burning Man Festival have to pay for insurance?” that seems to have disappeared from Heartland’s site).

Now we have one insisting that the government needs to break the Google monopoly and vigorously enforce “privacy” laws against Google. The mp3 of this interview with Scott Cleland, author of Search and Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc is here.

Cleland seems to want government to protect us from the threat that Google is.  I agree that Google can be a threat, as they really do want to organize all the information about all of us, and seem to be pretty good at it. But I think the real threat will happen when Google and Government merge.  Until then, we are probably best advised to use the good cheap or free alternatives to Google’s services, and to work without signing in to Google to the extent possible.

My own experience with Google Adsense, btw, occurred when trying to buy some traffic to the Henry George School web site.  People concerned about “poverty” might be interested in us, so I tried that keyword.  The problem was that most of the news articles Google coded as “poverty” were about crime and criminals.  So I excluded some words, I think it was “gun”, “police,” and a couple others.  Adsense failed to recognize these exclusions.  On one of the google discussion groups I found other people who have experienced similar problems.  Eventually, Google said something to the effect of “if you want to keep advertising with us you’ll have to pay more money per hit.”  I guess we would have had to pay enough to justify having a Google Human get involved, and that was too expensive, so the project was put aside.  The dollar cost was modest but the benefit was more modest.

Tags: ,
Posted in Chicagoland, Internet and software, podcasts, worth a look | No Comments »

What bitcoin illustrates about fiat money

May 17th, 2011 by Administrator

The value of bitcoin seems to have surged to over $7, from less than one dollar a couple of months ago.  This is a far faster increase than the price of gold, or silver, or other “hard” assets.

Bitcoin was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, who must be a skilled and innovative programmer.  Anyone can generate bitcoins by setting their computer to solve specific mathematical problems.  As more bitcoins are generated, the difficulty of the problems increases.  Relatively few vendors currently accept bitcoins, but several dealers are willing to trade dollars for them.  And the reason their value has increased must be that people are willing to pay more dollars than previously.

Why pay more dollars?  One reason is that the total number of bitcoins is limited, so presumably they cannot suffer the kind of inflation that often occurs with paper currency. (Could that rule change? Yes, just as some new major deposit of gold or silver might be discovered.)  Another reason, of course, could be that people are just learning about bitcoins, and seeing the trend, expect it to continue.  Also, bitcoins give some indication of being truly anonymous, secure money.

Now, if I was a skilled programmer, I could invent my own bitcoin-ish system, and generate my own coins.  But unless someone is willing to accept my coins in exchange for something people want, they’ll have no value.  Perhaps Satoshi Nakamoto is not only skilled, but also charismatic.

Bitcoins have intrinsic value in the sense that it takes a lot of work (done by the computer) in order to generate one, much as it takes a lot of work to discover, mine and refine precious metals. But, whereas I could use precious metals to make jewelry or tableware, I can’t think of anything that anyone could do with a bitcoin, other than spend it or save it.

So it seems to me that bitcoin shows that fiat money could work quite well, provided that the proper amount of it is issued.  If bitcoin’s deflationary trend continues, it might be a good investment but would lose usefulness as actual currency.  I think the most likely outcome will be, either, a decision to produce more bitcoins (however that might be made), or the creation of other alternative currencies operating in parallel.

Interesting times.

Tags: ,
Posted in Internet and software, investments, money, speculation | No Comments »

Ideas come from the community

September 27th, 2010 by Administrator

In his 2003 book Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity, Siva Vaidhyanathan notes that creative works always build on previous (often traditional and/or public domain) creative works, and that creativity will become nearly impossible if writers (or those who “own” their output) are permitted to exercise absolute monopolies over use of their products.  Potential remedies include shorter and looser copyright terms, placing works into the public domain, licensing them as open source, or using another of the Creative Commons licenses.

Michele Baldrin and David K. Levine, in Against Intellectual Monopoly, provide numerous historical examples of patents retarding, rather than promoting innovation, and note the finding (p. 92, regarding the software industry) that patents were not an encouragement to research and development, but rather a substitute for them.

Now, in  Where Ideas Come From (in Wired Oct ’10) Kevin Kelly and Steven Johnson sort of combine these two ideas by asserting that innovations are not the products of individuals, but of communities.

It’s amazing that the myth of the lone genius has persisted for so long, since simultaneous invention has always been the norm, not the exception … [T]here’s a related myth, that innovation comes primarily from the profit motive… If you look at history, it comes from creating environments where [people's] ideas can connect.”

And they tie this into another kind of property rights:

One reason we have this great explosion of innovation in wireless right now is that the U S deregulated [allowed unlicensed use of parts of the] spectrum.  Before that, spectrum was something too precious to be wasted…But when you deregulate– and say, OK, now waste it– you get Wi-Fi.

All in all, a very Georgist article, the authors of which have also written what I hope are very Georgist books (both coming out next month):

Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From

Kevin Kelly What Technology Wants

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in corporate privilege, economic development, Intellectual property, which I think is neither, Internet and software | No Comments »

Patent Absurdity

June 7th, 2010 by Administrator

New (to me, anyhow) video from Luca Lucarini about software patents.  I already knew that patents seem to stifle innovation in most fields, diverting resources into trolling and defenses.  I didn’t know that programmers have an incentive not to keep track of patents which they might infringe, because ignorance apparently reduces the penalty for infringement.

Posted in Intellectual property, which I think is neither, Internet and software | No Comments »

Writing notes on pdf’s

July 26th, 2009 by Administrator

Now I can do it.  I can read a pdf document on the screen, highlight or underline parts of it, write notes in the margins, and save it.  I can change or erase my marks without changing the document.  I’ve been looking for a way to do this for a while, and I can do it with Xournal. (It is said that some other programs can also provide this capability, but I haven’t tried them.)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Internet and software | No Comments »

Menace of Privilege returns!

June 11th, 2009 by Administrator

I have decided to move from wordpress.com to a commercial host.  Not easy to choose one, as there is so much hype and hustle in the field.  So here I am at Maiahost, so far so good, as promised they took care of moving everything from the old taxpayer.wordpress.com (which will still exist for a while) to the new menaceofprivilege.com.  Except they did not move the theme, leaving me instead with the wordpress default.

Not a serious problem, since I was going to change themes anyway, so as to accommodate ads.  This will happen eventually.

Maiahost is not the very cheapest host but doesn’t really cost very much, and seems to have humans (well, New Yorkers) involved in its administration.

Tags:
Posted in Internet and software, my earlier blogs,and a new one | No Comments »

Yes, this is the taxpayer blog

March 1st, 2009 by taxpayer

New theme, “neat,” allows me to put up a custom image. But until I do, I’ve discovered, it doesn’t post the name of the blog. Yeah, this is still the taxpayer blog (tho the name will change too), and when I get around to it I’ll straighten this out.

Tags: ,
Posted in Internet and software | No Comments »

Pedestrian directions now available on Google maps

August 6th, 2008 by taxpayer

So, for instance, suppose I want to get some of that free land in Marquette, Kansas, but I don’t have a car or bicycle.  Google will provide directions, a total of 314 segments for the 766-mile trip.  Google estimates it’ll take me 10 days and 10 hours, which works out to just over 3 miles per hour.  I guess they assume I sleepwalk, but take breaks occasionally. I don’t imagine their database worries about whether there are sidewalks, but they do say “Walking directions are in beta. Use caution when walking in unfamiliar areas.”

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Free land, Internet and software | No Comments »

Netvouz– keeping bookmarks on line

June 10th, 2007 by taxpayer

I’ve had, for years, a problem with various browsers, computers, etc, each having a bunch of bookmarks, not identical nor even  organized in similar ways.  And at various times I’ve had difficulty figuring out how Firefox and
Opera, the main browsers I use, expect me to manage their bookmark files.

I finally decided that I needed to use one of the on-line bookmark managers, and ended up with Netvouz.

(Why Netvouz? I tried two or three others, and couldn’t get Opera to let me install the
links to a bar, necessary to easily access the bookmarks.  Finally, when I got to Netvouz,
I figured I must be doing something wrong and sent a note seeking support.  A couple days later  I had a helpful response, explaining how I could overcome an Opera weirdness. )

It took me a little while to figure out how to use Netvouz, but it’s logically organized and, most importantly, seems to be bulletproof reliable.  So I’m gradually getting accustomed to it, and it’s a great convenience.

Posted in Internet and software | No Comments »
'
I support the OCCUPY movement