On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 22:50:27 -0000 (UTC), Peter Dean wrote:

> In alt.folklore.computers Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2024-10-21, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On 21 Oct 2024 19:33:03 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>>>
>>>> Add up all those milliliters and pretty soon you have another bottle
>>>> of booze to sell.
>>>
>>> Make them say “millilitres” first ... if they can’t, don’t sell it to
>>> ’em ...
>>
>> Easy. It's pronounced "see see".
>>
> We just say mills. Everyone knows what you mean. Once you eradicate
> medieval measuring systems, life is so much easier.

Yup. In fact I bought a box of 9 mills this afternoon.

On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 11:14:31 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:

> I used to argue against abortion, but with all the fuss I have come to
> realize that my libertarian instincts have risen to the top. Just have
> the government stay the h*ll out of it.

Looking at the demographics I may favor abortion with a tubal ligation
thrown in for free. I also wonder if those seeking abortions should have a
sign around their necks saying 'I am too stupid to practice birth
control.'

On Wed, 23 Oct 2024 00:27:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> Perhaps, but my original point was that a concise reference -
> even 100 words - can provide the needed information in a fraction of the
> time needed to wade through a rambling video.

Even in school I tended to cut the lectures and get what I needed from the
text. That's how my mind functions. Making everything into an extended
podcast doesn't work for me at all.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
> The original concept was called “letters patent”. These were Government-
> granted monopolies in particular industries (e.g. salt extraction from
> seawater, or the manufacturer of gold leaf); if anybody else tried to set
> up in competition with you, the legitimate monopoly holder, the Government
> would send its goons round to give them a hiding.
>
> When it became clear the system was outdated, instead of getting rid of it
> completely, the idea was changed so that you needed to come up with some
> kind of “invention” to get a “patent”, which gave you a monopoly on the
> rights to that “invention”.
>
> Though oddly, the concept of “invention” needs to be narrowly defined. For
> example, Einstein couldn’t get a patent on his groundbreaking General
> Theory of Relativity, but microchips exploiting General Relativity to
> accurately determine your position in space and time can indeed be
> patented. Was the underlying enabling theory too “inventive” to be
> patented, perhaps?

False Profits: Reviving the Corporation's Public Purpose
https://www.uclalawreview.org/false-profits-reviving-the-corporations-public-purpose/

I Origins of the Corporation. Although the corporate structure dates
back as far as the Greek and Roman Empires, characteristics of the
modern corporation began to appear in England in the mid-thirteenth
century.[4] "Merchant guilds" were loose organizations of merchants
"governed through a council somewhat akin to a board of directors," and
organized to "achieve a common purpose"[5] that was public in
nature. Indeed, merchant guilds registered with the state and were
approved only if they were "serving national purposes."[6]

.... snip ...

.... however there has been significant pressure to give corporate
charters to entities operating in self-interest ... followed by
extending constitutional "people" rights to corporations. The supreme
court was scammed into extending 14th amendment rights to corporations
(with faux claims that was what the original authors had intended).
https://www.amazon.com/We-Corporations-American-Businesses-Rights-ebook/dp/B01M64LRDJ/
pgxiv/loc74-78: Between 1868, when the amendment was ratified, and 1912,
when a scholar set out to identify every Fourteenth Amendment case heard
by the Supreme Court, the justices decided 28 cases dealing with the
rights of African Americans--and an astonishing 312 cases dealing with
the rights of corporations.

The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future
https://www.amazon.com/Price-Inequality-Divided-Society-Endangers-ebook/dp/B007MKCQ30/
pg35/loc1169-73: In business school we teach students how to recognize,
and create, barriers to competition -- including barriers to entry --
that help ensure that profits won't be eroded. Indeed, as we shall
shortly see, some of the most important innovations in business in the
last three decades have centered not on making the economy more
efficient but on how better to ensure monopoly power or how better to
circumvent government regulations intended to align social returns and
private rewards

How Economists Turned Corporations into Predators
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/10/economists-turned-corporations-predators.html
Since the 1980s, business schools have touted "agency theory," a
controversial set of ideas meant to explain how corporations best
operate. Proponents say that you run a business with the goal of
channeling money to shareholders instead of, say, creating great
products or making any efforts at socially responsible actions such as
taking account of climate change.

A Short History Of Corporations
https://newint.org/features/2002/07/05/history
After Independence, American corporations, like the British companies
before them, were chartered to perform specific public functions -
digging canals, building bridges. Their charters lasted between 10 and
40 years, often requiring the termination of the corporation on
completion of a specific task, setting limits on commercial interests
and prohibiting any corporate participation in the political process.

.... a residual of that is current law that can't use funds/payments from
government contracts for lobbying. After the turn of the century there
was huge upswing in private equity buying up beltway bandits and
government contractors, PE owners then transfer every cent possible to
their own pockets, which can be used to hire prominent politicians that
can lobby congress (including "contributions") to give contracts to
their owned companies (resulting in huge increase in gov. outsourcing to
private companies) ... can snowball since gov. agencies aren't allowed
to lobby (contributing to claims that congress is most corrupt
institution on earth)
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/10/barbarians-capitol-private-equity-public-enemy/
"Lou Gerstner, former ceo of ibm, now heads the Carlyle Group, a
Washington-based global private equity firm whose 2006 revenues of $87
billion were just a few billion below ibm's. Carlyle has boasted George
H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and former Secretary of State James Baker III
on its employee roster."

.... also promoting the "Success of Failure" culture (especially in the
military/intelligence-industrial complex)
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

On Wed, 23 Oct 2024 00:54:24 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> On 23 Oct 2024 00:38:20 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>
>> Quite a bit of investment has been made in that dusky underclass for
>> seventy years with little to show for it ...
>
> Look at your existing affluent elite, and note how many of them
> originated from that very underclass. Seventy years is way too long to
> go without such replacement becoming inevitable.

Diddy may have been affluent but he hardly was elite.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-top-10-most-startling-facts-
about-people-of-color-and-criminal-justice-in-the-united-states/

One could, and you probably do, assume some huge conspiracy of privileged
whites to keep people of color down, or one could ask if there is more to
the story.

On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:40:38 -1000, Lynn Wheeler wrote:

> ... followed by extending constitutional "people" rights to
> corporations.

And don’t forget the whole sorry SuperPAC saga.

Some people want to extend “people” rights to animals and even places of
special cultural significance.

All very well, except that remember, flesh-and-blood human people don’t
just have rights, they also have responsibilities. If you want to grant
“people” rights to these nonhuman entities, shouldn’t they be obliged to
accept “people” responsibilities as well?

Unless, well, there is one sort of human people that has rights with few
or no responsibilities: children.

On 23 Oct 2024 01:49:42 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> Diddy may have been affluent but he hardly was elite.

Sure he was -- how else did he get away with his criminal acts for so
long?

Phil Spector, too, was affluent elite -- and did lots of unsavoury things
before killing Lana Clarkson.

> One could, and you probably do, assume some huge conspiracy of
> privileged whites to keep people of color down, or one could ask if
> there is more to the story.

Some say Elvis Presley was created specifically to stop white girls going
wild over Chuck Berry.

All it did was delay the inevitable.

On 10/22/24 5:01 AM, Pancho wrote:
> On 22/10/2024 09:38, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> Behind 'social justice' lies the faux post Marxist principle that
>> 'everyone is  oppressed, or oppressing, and therefore a natural state
>> of conflict exists, and it is the job of government to fix that'.
>>
>
> This is what law and order is about, having rules,  not socialism.

Biden today said it was vital to "lock up" Trump
immediately. He kinda back-tracked, but too late,
he'd already spilled the beans.

And TRUMP is the "threat to democracy" ???

This is 3rd-world shithole political sentiment.
Dems can no longer be trusted with anything in
the Land Of The Free.

But what does this have to do with Linux ?

In alt.folklore.computers rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 22:50:27 -0000 (UTC), Peter Dean wrote:
>
>> In alt.folklore.computers Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 2024-10-21, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 21 Oct 2024 19:33:03 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Add up all those milliliters and pretty soon you have another bottle
>>>>> of booze to sell.
>>>>
>>>> Make them say “millilitres” first ... if they can’t, don’t sell it to
>>>> ’em ...
>>>
>>> Easy. It's pronounced "see see".
>>>
>> We just say mills. Everyone knows what you mean. Once you eradicate
>> medieval measuring systems, life is so much easier.
>
> Yup. In fact I bought a box of 9 mills this afternoon.

Pretty hard to do that in Australia.

More like "how long is that board?" "2400 mills"
"what's the volume of a stubby of beer?" "375 mills"
It's all about context.

On 2024-10-23, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

> XVI. His grandfather, Louis XV, had lost New France to the Brits in the
> Seven Years War (French and Indian War in the US). XV left the mortal coil
> in 1774. I would assume XVI was butt hurt about losing the colonies to the
> Brits, like Lafayette who lost his father in the same war. XVI inherited a
> real bag of crap.

Yup. And XV knew it, too. "Après moi, le déluge."

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | We'll go down in history as the
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | first society that wouldn't save
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | itself because it wasn't cost-
/ \ if you read it the right way. | effective. -- Kurt Vonnegut

On 10/1/24 8:54 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Oct 2024 16:07:42 -0700, John Ames wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 1 Oct 2024 22:17:26 -0000 (UTC)
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> That’s why I say, you got to be kidding about it being “cleaner
>>> overall”.
>>
>> I meant more on a core language/syntax level ...
>
> Even then, you often have to write things like
>
> final java.util.Map<android.view.MenuItem, PopupAction> NewMenuItems =
> new java.util.HashMap<android.view.MenuItem, PopupAction>(MenuItems.size());
>
> That particular example may be Android-specific, but I don’t think you
> can blame the Android API calls for this particular instance of
> long-windedness; it’s fundamental to the way Java works.

Look, Java/JS kinda just SUCKS to write in. The
'object' aspect has gotten totally out of control,
to the point where you can barely tell what one
of those ultra-long lines actually DOES. This
isn't a good thing.

More "simple" approaches like TeX and Pascal may
be the 'better way' by and large.

Of course now "AI" is getting into the app-writing
process. Its logic and methods and syntax are now
kinda out of of the realm of human understanding
and will rapidly get WAY beyond.

This is where tech again becomes "magic". Speak
the charms and chants and spells ..... but HOW
it works will always be a mystic mystery.

On Tue, 22 Oct 2024, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> On 2024-10-22, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 22 Oct 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>> In that sense the companies themselves have gone 'socialist' in that, like
>>> Marx, they regard economics as a zero sum game.
>>
>> Incorrect. By design they do what they do, and whether the economy is
>> zero sum (it is not) or not, does not really apply. That is why todays
>> crypto-socialist government is so extremely dangerous. It subverts and
>> distorts the markets, just by existing.
>
> As opposed to large corporations subverting and distorting the markets,
> as God intended.

They do it with the help of the governments. By themselves, per
definition, they are not able to over time.

>>> That is, it isn't about creating more wealth, it's about who gets to own
>>> what there is left.
>>
>> True.
>
> I.e., a zero-sum game.

No, it is not, and that is proven by economics. The proof is that we are
8.2 billion people on the planet and we've never had it better. If economy
was zero sum, we'd be dead by now.

On Wed, 23 Oct 2024, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> On 2024-10-22, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 21:04:53 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>
>>> I.e., a zero-sum game.
>>
>> But the very concept of “economic growth” is incompatible with the
>> assumption of economics being a zero-sum game.
>
> By the classical definition, perhaps. Not necessarily in the
> newfangled sense of some rich guy getting all the marbles.
> And, of course, the planet _is_ finite...

Don't forget the universe, a rich source of raw materials and energy.

On 23/10/2024 01:27, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2024-10-22, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 21:04:53 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>
>>> I.e., a zero-sum game.
>>
>> But the very concept of “economic growth” is incompatible with the
>> assumption of economics being a zero-sum game.
>
> By the classical definition, perhaps. Not necessarily in the
> newfangled sense of some rich guy getting all the marbles.
> And, of course, the planet _is_ finite...
>

The problem is that we can in theory produce marvellous low entropy
products like computers, but only at the expense of increasing entropy
elsewhere.

That is what I call wealth creation.

Getting paid to go into work and create meaningless bureaucratic rules
increases employment, but it also increases entropy with no
corresponding lower entropy product.
That is wealth destruction.

And in fact the statement that no growth is possible in a zero sum game
is why socialists have a real problem in generating it.

I cant answer for the States but almost to a man the Left in this
country are 100% ex public sector workers, or in areas of activity that
are largely parasitic. E.g. lawyers.

None of them have any experience of creating wealth, they just got paid
regardless.

--
There is nothing a fleet of dispatchable nuclear power plants cannot do
that cannot be done worse and more expensively and with higher carbon
emissions and more adverse environmental impact by adding intermittent
renewable energy.

"Why Nations Fail"
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity-ebook/dp/B0058Z4NR8/

original settlement, Jamestown ... English planning on emulating the
Spanish model, enslave the local natives to support the
settlement. Unfortunately the North American natives weren't as
cooperative and the settlement nearly starved. Then started out switching
to sending over some of the other populations from the British Isles
essentially as slaves ... the English Crown charters had them as
"leet-man" ... pg27: The clauses of the Fundamental Constitutions laid
out a rigid social structure. At the bottom were the "leet-men," with
clause 23 noting, "All the children of leet-men shall be leet-men, and
so to all generations."

My wife's father was presented with a set of 1880 history books for some
distinction at West Point by the Daughters Of the 17th Century
http://www.colonialdaughters17th.org/

which refer to if it hadn't been for the influence of the Scottish
settlers from the mid-atlantic states, the northern/English states would
have prevailed and the US would look much more like England with monarch
("above the law") and strict class hierarchy.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

On 23/10/2024 01:36, John Ames wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 22:23:31 -0000 (UTC)
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> And you really expect the young kids today to spend the extra effort
>> learning something like Forth?
>
> I don't expect anyone to do anything! They're free to use whatever fits
> their workflow and personal tastes best!
>
> It's just funny to watch you be so dedicated to dismissing out-of-hand
> a thing that nobody was even pressuring you to use, is all.
>
And if I might interject, I am a 24-year old who has not that long ago
started learning the UXN (https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/uxn.html) system.
While it isn't a bare-metal FORTH, targetting a virtual machine, in
terms of learning about FORTHs, I think it qualifies.

And if I don't qualify as a "young kid", well, I have a 13-year-old
brother, who has also started learning the language.

On 23 Oct 2024 01:09:59 GMT, rbowman wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 11:14:31 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
>
>> I used to argue against abortion, but with all the fuss I have come to
>> realize that my libertarian instincts have risen to the top. Just have
>> the government stay the h*ll out of it.
>
> Looking at the demographics I may favor abortion with a tubal ligation
> thrown in for free.

> I also wonder if those seeking abortions should have a sign around
> their necks saying 'I am too stupid to practice birth control.'

But you wouldn't require it of _him_ ? Interesting.

On 2024-10-22, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 22:23:31 -0000 (UTC)
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> And you really expect the young kids today to spend the extra effort
>> learning something like Forth?
>
> I don't expect anyone to do anything! They're free to use whatever fits
> their workflow and personal tastes best!
>
> It's just funny to watch you be so dedicated to dismissing out-of-hand
> a thing that nobody was even pressuring you to use, is all.
>

I like it!
But some folk just have to get you thinking like them.

On Wed, 23 Oct 2024 03:15:43 -0400
"186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net> wrote:

> This is where tech again becomes "magic". Speak the charms and chants
> and spells ..... but HOW it works will always be a mystic mystery.

It's not a mystery at all; it's a probabilistic word-salad composed of
diced and julienned plagiarism, served up by a program that knows
nothing about anything. This is very, very well-documented and not even
slightly magical.

On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 23:37:43 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

> Presumably there is some threshold below which it simply isn’t worth
> trying to save a bit of RAM. What is it nowadays: as much as 1MiB?
> Higher? Lower?

No doubt there is, but where exactly is the question, and the answer
probably varies depending on the scope of the project. But, just for
the sake of argument, you could compare between the STM32G0B1KET6N
(listed on Mouser for $2.95/unit at scale) and the M0G3505QRHBRQ1 ($1.44
at the same breakpoint) - both ARM Cortex M0+ with a handful of misc.
functionality, but the one has 512 KB Flash/144 KB RAM, and the other
only 32 KB/16 KB. $1.50 or so is pretty trivial to you & me, sure - but
times however many thousands/millions of units in a commercial context,
it adds up to a considerably bigger deal.

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote in
news:lnr0n6Ffh95U6@mid.individual.net:

> On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 11:14:31 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
>
>> I used to argue against abortion, but with all the fuss I have come to
>> realize that my libertarian instincts have risen to the top. Just have
>> the government stay the h*ll out of it.
>
> Looking at the demographics I may favor abortion with a tubal ligation
> thrown in for free. I also wonder if those seeking abortions should
> have a sign around their necks saying 'I am too stupid to practice
> birth control.'

What demographics are you looking at?
Short of tubal ligation and bilateral bolectomy, birth controls methods are
not failure-proof.

On 2024-10-23, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

> On Wed, 23 Oct 2024, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> On 2024-10-22, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 21:04:53 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>>
>>>> I.e., a zero-sum game.
>>>
>>> But the very concept of “economic growth” is incompatible with the
>>> assumption of economics being a zero-sum game.
>>
>> By the classical definition, perhaps. Not necessarily in the
>> newfangled sense of some rich guy getting all the marbles.
>> And, of course, the planet _is_ finite...
>
> Don't forget the universe, a rich source of raw materials and energy.

"That asteroid contains trillions of dollars' worth of raw materials!"
-- Don't Look Up

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | We'll go down in history as the
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | first society that wouldn't save
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | itself because it wasn't cost-
/ \ if you read it the right way. | effective. -- Kurt Vonnegut

On 2024-10-23, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

> On Tue, 22 Oct 2024, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> On 2024-10-22, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 22 Oct 2024, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>> In that sense the companies themselves have gone 'socialist' in that, like
>>>> Marx, they regard economics as a zero sum game.
>>>
>>> Incorrect. By design they do what they do, and whether the economy is
>>> zero sum (it is not) or not, does not really apply. That is why todays
>>> crypto-socialist government is so extremely dangerous. It subverts and
>>> distorts the markets, just by existing.
>>
>> As opposed to large corporations subverting and distorting the markets,
>> as God intended.
>
> They do it with the help of the governments. By themselves, per
> definition, they are not able to over time.
>
>>>> That is, it isn't about creating more wealth, it's about who gets to own
>>>> what there is left.
>>>
>>> True.
>>
>> I.e., a zero-sum game.
>
> No, it is not, and that is proven by economics. The proof is that we are
> 8.2 billion people on the planet and we've never had it better. If economy
> was zero sum, we'd be dead by now.

Give it time...

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | We'll go down in history as the
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | first society that wouldn't save
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | itself because it wasn't cost-
/ \ if you read it the right way. | effective. -- Kurt Vonnegut

On Wed, 23 Oct 2024 11:34:13 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote in <vfajf5$1vqc5$7@dont-email.me>:

> I cant answer for the States but almost to a man the Left in this country
> are 100% ex public sector workers, or in areas of activity that are
> largely parasitic. E.g. lawyers.

Sounds like a stereotype.

I'm in the States. I'm a veteran, then I worked at the local
community college, then used that knowledge (along with a biz partner)
to start an ISP. I've now lost track of how many employees we have,
but it's over 1K.

My politics are middle-of-the-road by any other measure, but
many red-state denizens would consider me -- not "left", not even
"left-wing", but "leftist" and "a dad-blurned lib'rul!"

Meanwhile, we use Linux _a lot_ in our business. I daresay Linux is
a more useful server and workstation OS than anything else.

When Microsoft added Linux to their OS, I figured Linus had
achieved his goal of Linux on the desktop. Others may disagree,
but wide-scale adoption of Linux by Microsoft can't be denied: heck,
they even have their own distribution now.

BTW, this workstation is a turnkey offering by System76, for
which I have had only one problem -- and when brought to their
attention, I received great (and timely) support over email.
Kudos to them, and that's why I have them in my .sig.

--
-v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti
OS: Linux 6.11.5 Release: Mint 21.3 Mem: 258G
"43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr..."

vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> writes:
>On Wed, 23 Oct 2024 11:34:13 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
><tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote in <vfajf5$1vqc5$7@dont-email.me>:
>
>> I cant answer for the States but almost to a man the Left in this country
>> are 100% ex public sector workers, or in areas of activity that are
>> largely parasitic. E.g. lawyers.
>
>Sounds like a stereotype.

Moreover, "this country" that NP refers to appears to be the UK, not the USA.