To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?
Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two mont
From: "How to Become As Rich As Bill Gates" http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/ [greenspun.com] """ William Henry Gates III made his best decision on October 28, 1955, the night he was born. He chose J.W. Maxwell as his great-grandfather. Maxwell founded Seattle's National City Bank in 1906. His son, James Willard Maxwell was also a banker and established a million-dollar trust fund for William (Bill) Henry Gates III. In some of the later lessons, you will be encouraged to take entrepreneurial risks.
Bill Gate's could have spent his lifetime writing free software. That being born a multi-millionaire was not enough for him is a sign of an illness that causes "financial obesity", not something to be emulated. But, in the end, it is not Bill Gates who has destroyed our society as much as all the people who want to be the next Bill Gates and support regressive social policies they hope to benefit from someday.
It's a poor, twisted soul that even thinks to call wealth 'financial obesity', or refer to it as an
You are engaging in an ad hominem (personal) attack and creating strawmen arguments, and saying there is no point to dialog, which all suggests your points are weak.
The term "financial obesity" comes from the author James P. Hogan, who is one of the most optimistic people around, believing strongly in the value of learning and effort and advanced technology. Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear [wikipedia.org]
But even market capitalism cannot function if wealth is too centralized. You'd be right that physical wealth is not a zero sum game -- but financial wealth can be a zero sum game especially when you make it so by using financial wealth techniques to create artificial scarcity -- like monopolistic techniques that have been found by multiple courts to be illegal even under legal systems designed to support artificial scarcity.
The central irony of today's society is how often post-scarcity technologies like automation, robotics, the internet, biotech, nuclear energy, and even bureaucracy are used to create artificial scarcities for someone's private gain instead of abundance for all.
War is part of that, whether military war or economic war:
"WAR IS A RACKET" by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler - USMC Retired http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm [lexrex.com] "WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
I did not use the word "guilt"; you did. Maybe Bill Gates sees problems in a world still threatened by nuclear war, by bioengineered plagues (perhaps weaponized Lyme like President Bush got?), by killer robots like the drones that allegedly killed children in Pakistan by an order given within three days of Obama taking office, where billions of people still live in poverty and diseases despite enough global abundance for all, and in the middle of an enormous global financial collapse?
Bill Gates knows something is wrong, just like Alan Greenspan admitted something was wrong, but he just does not understand it, because, as Einstein said, problems usually can not be solved by the same type of thinking that created them (your reply being an example?:-).
"I Was Wrong! Alan Greenspan" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55-A1-D3MR0 [youtube.com]
For many years, Forth was a better OS, language, and editor than MS-DOS and BASIC. Bill Gates only got a chance to build on IBM's monopoly because of internal fighting within IBM and also his mother's social connections. Then, after that, QNX was a better OS. Smalltalk was better too as a language and IDE, and Bill Gates even admitted that somewhere. But monopolistic practices let Bill Gates succeed while technically better solutions failed in the market.
Our society often socializes external costs and systemic risks, while privatizing gains (like the recent banking bailout instead of just giving money to the people to spend). And above are links to three people, a successful author, a decorated military general, and the previous director of the Federal Reserve, all essentially saying that. But, when someone tries to point out stuff like that, you say they have a "poisoned soul", without knowing anything about them, and without in the slightest trying to evaluate the historical truths they point to. http://www.historyisaweapon.com/ [historyisaweapon.com] """
History isn't what happened, but a story of what happened. And there are always different versions, different stories, about the same events. One version might revolve mainly around a specific set of facts while another version might minimize them or not include them at all.
Like stories, each of these different versions of history contain different lessons. Some histories tell us that our leaders, at least, have always tried to do right for everyone. Others remark that the emperors don't have the slaves' best interests at heart. Some teach us that this is both what has always been and what always will be. Others counsel that we shouldn't mistake transient dominance for intrinsic superiority. Lastly, some histories paint a picture where only the elites have the power to change the world, while others point out that social change is rarely commanded from the top down. """
You are engaging in an ad hominem (personal) attack and creating strawmen arguments, and saying there is no point to dialog, which all suggests your points are weak.
The market is failing for several mathematical reasons, so Sowell, even though wrong about many historic psychological things, is irrelevant (look up Marshall Sahlin's work on "The Original Affluent Society" or Alfie Kohn's work on motivation with lots of references to the scientific literature). http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html [gnu.org]
Ok, obviously someone is abusing the moderation system here to have a go at this guy or we have a moderator that is on a bad acid trip. I'll be flagging it as such and maybe some other moderators will redress the situation.
The term "financial obesity" comes from the author James P. Hogan, who is one of the most optimistic people around, believing strongly in the value of learning and effort and advanced technology. Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear [wikipedia.org]
And one of the few books around that describes what an Open Sourced society might look like - very interesting read.
Why the fuck is this ++Insightful comment modded as a troll? I see nothing trollish in it. It's ironic though that the behavior exhibited
Bill Gates wrote to me for money in 1976 (Score:5, Interesting)
By William Henry Gates III
February 3, 1976
An Open Letter to Hobbyists
To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?
Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two mont
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
From:
"How to Become As Rich As Bill Gates"
http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/ [greenspun.com]
"""
William Henry Gates III made his best decision on October 28, 1955, the night he was born. He chose J.W. Maxwell as his great-grandfather. Maxwell founded Seattle's National City Bank in 1906. His son, James Willard Maxwell was also a banker and established a million-dollar trust fund for William (Bill) Henry Gates III. In some of the later lessons, you will be encouraged to take entrepreneurial risks.
financial obesity? illness? What gall! (Score:3, Insightful)
Bill Gate's could have spent his lifetime writing free software. That being born a multi-millionaire was not enough for him is a sign of an illness that causes "financial obesity", not something to be emulated. But, in the end, it is not Bill Gates who has destroyed our society as much as all the people who want to be the next Bill Gates and support regressive social policies they hope to benefit from someday.
It's a poor, twisted soul that even thinks to call wealth 'financial obesity', or refer to it as an
Re:financial obesity? illness? What gall! (Score:0, Troll)
You are engaging in an ad hominem (personal) attack and creating strawmen arguments, and saying there is no point to dialog, which all suggests your points are weak.
The term "financial obesity" comes from the author James P. Hogan, who is one of the most optimistic people around, believing strongly in the value of learning and effort and advanced technology. Example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear [wikipedia.org]
But even market capitalism cannot function if wealth is too centralized. You'd be right that physical wealth is not a zero sum game -- but financial wealth can be a zero sum game especially when you make it so by using financial wealth techniques to create artificial scarcity -- like monopolistic techniques that have been found by multiple courts to be illegal even under legal systems designed to support artificial scarcity.
The central irony of today's society is how often post-scarcity technologies like automation, robotics, the internet, biotech, nuclear energy, and even bureaucracy are used to create artificial scarcities for someone's private gain instead of abundance for all.
War is part of that, whether military war or economic war:
"WAR IS A RACKET" by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler - USMC Retired
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm [lexrex.com]
"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
I did not use the word "guilt"; you did. Maybe Bill Gates sees problems in a world still threatened by nuclear war, by bioengineered plagues (perhaps weaponized Lyme like President Bush got?), by killer robots like the drones that allegedly killed children in Pakistan by an order given within three days of Obama taking office, where billions of people still live in poverty and diseases despite enough global abundance for all, and in the middle of an enormous global financial collapse?
Bill Gates knows something is wrong, just like Alan Greenspan admitted something was wrong, but he just does not understand it, because, as Einstein said, problems usually can not be solved by the same type of thinking that created them (your reply being an example? :-).
"I Was Wrong! Alan Greenspan"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55-A1-D3MR0 [youtube.com]
For many years, Forth was a better OS, language, and editor than MS-DOS and BASIC. Bill Gates only got a chance to build on IBM's monopoly because of internal fighting within IBM and also his mother's social connections. Then, after that, QNX was a better OS. Smalltalk was better too as a language and IDE, and Bill Gates even admitted that somewhere. But monopolistic practices let Bill Gates succeed while technically better solutions failed in the market.
Our society often socializes external costs and systemic risks, while privatizing gains (like the recent banking bailout instead of just giving money to the people to spend). And above are links to three people, a successful author, a decorated military general, and the previous director of the Federal Reserve, all essentially saying that. But, when someone tries to point out stuff like that, you say they have a "poisoned soul", without knowing anything about them, and without in the slightest trying to evaluate the historical truths they point to.
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/ [historyisaweapon.com]
"""
History isn't what happened, but a story of what happened. And there are always different versions, different stories, about the same events. One version might revolve mainly around a specific set of facts while another version might minimize them or not include them at all.
Like stories, each of these different versions of history contain different lessons. Some histories tell us that our leaders, at least, have always tried to do right for everyone. Others remark that the emperors don't have the slaves' best interests at heart. Some teach us that this is both what has always been and what always will be. Others counsel that we shouldn't mistake transient dominance for intrinsic superiority. Lastly, some histories paint a picture where only the elites have the power to change the world, while others point out that social change is rarely commanded from the top down.
"""
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are engaging in an ad hominem (personal) attack and creating strawmen arguments, and saying there is no point to dialog, which all suggests your points are weak.
The differing underlying premises we operate from, and how that will generally make us talk past each other, is detailed in part by Thomas Sowell in A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles [amazon.com].
Unfortunately, I don't have the time or inclination to write a book, so I merely allude to the fact that the premises underlying our
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The market is failing for several mathematical reasons, so Sowell, even though wrong about many historic psychological things, is irrelevant (look up Marshall Sahlin's work on "The Original Affluent Society" or Alfie Kohn's work on motivation with lots of references to the scientific literature).
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html [gnu.org]
The market does not account well for positive or negative externalities (stuff like pollution).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality [wikipedia.org]
The
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And one of the few books around that describes what an Open Sourced society might look like - very interesting read.
Why the fuck is this ++Insightful comment modded as a troll? I see nothing trollish in it. It's ironic though that the behavior exhibited
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks. My sentiments exactly. :-)