http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss joedelta@yahoo.com Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:33:46 -0800 Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:34:44 -0800 iBlog 1.4.6 Joe Williams Joedelta -- Delta Joe Joe Williams rambles on random and irrelevant subjects sometimes involving Macintosh, games, stocks, politics, and movies. Whee. Joe Williams joedelta@yahoo.com Joedelta -- Delta Joe http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C762129689/E20060223123134/index.html Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:31:34 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C762129689/E20060223123134/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060220113755/index.html Wed, 22 Feb 2006 11:37:55 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060220113755/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060219152508/index.html Sun, 19 Feb 2006 15:25:08 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060219152508/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060219101457/index.html A lot of parents strictly limit how many cartoons their kids can watch. For the most part, I don't mind cartoons -- but the girls aren't allowed to watch commercials. If I catch them watching a commercial, the TV goes off and they have to go outside. Thank Heaven for Tivo! ]]> Sun, 19 Feb 2006 10:14:57 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060219101457/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060215105911/index.html I replaced my Politics and Technology graphics. I thought the Devil Bush was funny back during the election, but it's rarely appropriate any more. Instead, I went with an Earth flag, suggesting my techno-planet political philosophy. And I replaced the old Mac G5 (Technology? Please.) with a Spaceward Ho! scientist with an exploding head. ]]> Sat, 18 Feb 2006 10:59:11 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060215105911/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060217224550/index.html Fri, 17 Feb 2006 22:45:50 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060217224550/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1186645580/E20060217133413/index.html True wealth isn't the value of what you own -- it's the ability of what you own to produce.

Let's say you and I start a company, each putting in $10,000, and getting 1000 shares worth $10 each. Let's say the company buys and sells stuff, but makes no profit.

Now suppose that I buy 100 of your shares for $11. You now have $1,100 cash and 900 shares worth a total of $990, for $11,000. I have negative $1,100, and 1100 shares worth $12,100, also making $11,000. We made $1,000 each!

But you're sad about me having more shares than me, so you buy them back at $12. Now I have $10 cash, and each of us has $12,000 worth of stock. Whee!

You can't help but notice that I have more money than you, because I bought early. So you want to buy another 100 shares. I let them go at $20, so we're each now worth almost $20,000. Hooray! Our friends and neighbors, seeing our money piling in, might even start competing for our shares, making everyone rich.

Welcome to the stock market.

The purpose of the stock market is to provide a system for companies to raise capital for expansion without borrowing it, and to provide a convenient method for owners to share ownership and keep track of the money. But nowadays the market is almost entirely speculation. People buy stocks based not on the money the stock will produce for them (dividends have nearly disappeared), but for the future appreciation of the stock -- which is not necessarily based on anything tangible. Plenty of people have gotten rich on companies that do nothing but lose money. Doesn't seem like a great system.

]]> Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:34:13 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1186645580/E20060217133413/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C762129689/E20060216211520/index.html The last time I received annoying diet spam from Amazon, I went to their preferences page to find that mysteriously all of my "please spam me" prefs had gone from off to on. I carefully turned them all off, and also hit the "Receive no email" checkbox for good measure.

Today:

"Dear Amazon.com Customer,

As someone who has purchased books by Mark Victor Hansen..." (And no, I haven't.)

Aaargh! What do I have to do to make them stop? My preferences still say, "Receive no email" this time. What is wrong with them?

]]> Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:15:20 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C762129689/E20060216211520/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C322755863/E20060216180222/index.html -----ERIC L.-----

I always have a problem when people say that humanity can destroy the earth. That's totally false. The earth doesn't care what we do to it. The absolute worst we can do to the earth is destroy ourselves and most other species, but in a few million years (or 10 million or 100 million years) things will settle down and descendants of the surviving species will occupy the empty niches.

There have been extinction events in the past where 95% of all species have been wiped out.

The only way to render the planet totally lifeless would be to somehow strip away the entire atmosphere, and I know of no way humans can do that, well at least this year.

-----JOE-----
It's may be possible for us to create a nasty ecological positive feedback loop that Venusizes the planet, and the potential for nanotech to grey goo us all is terrifyingly plausible, but I agree that we're unlikely to kill the earth dead in the short term.

However, if the planet hasn't bred in the next 5 billion years, it's history when the sun goes red giant on us. And by using up so much of the cheap and easy resources, we're making the job harder -- maybe impossible -- for the next potential spacefaring species to evolve if we muck it up and extinguish ourselves. We're the best chance for the planet to reproduce, and we definitely have the ability to stop ourselves from doing that. Making humanity extinct would be hard, but fragging civilization so badly that it never recovers to the current state is all too easy.

]]> Thu, 16 Feb 2006 18:02:22 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C322755863/E20060216180222/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1696870512/E20060215104614/index.html I had a dream last night that we had stopped charging for Clan Lord. Instead, all the money that folks put in gave them shares in the Clan Lord Corporation. And all the characters worked together not just to kill monsters, but somehow to also make a profit.

The dream was a little fuzzy on that part.

What would CL contribute to the world that would persuade non-CL people to give CL money? ]]> Thu, 16 Feb 2006 10:46:14 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1696870512/E20060215104614/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C322755863/E20060215093854/index.html

Reproduction. That's both the definition of life and the goal. Do it and you grow. Fail and you die. So is the goal of every person to have as many children as possible? That depends on how big your big picture is. Let's do some hypothetical tradeoffs. Ask somebody if he wants to stay alive. Sure, he'll say. Is it the most important thing in his life? He might well say yes. If he had to choose between between his own life and the life of his wife and children, he'd probably sacrifice himself. So they're the most important thing. If he had to choose between the lives of his family and a thousand people in his town, he'd probably choose his town. So they're more important. If he had to choose between his town and his country, his town's probably history. What if he had to choose between all humans or every other species? Tough call. Personally, I think I'd have to say that the Earth is more important than humanity. But it's definitely a tough call. We're programmed for self-preservation pretty hard. I think of the planet as one giant organism, of which humans, and each of us as individuals, is one tiny part. Is it really alive? If we want it to be alive, we have to help it do the one thing life does: reproduce. Humans have the ability to be the brains of earth. We can decide how to help it. We have the ability to help it reproduce itself, to spread our seeds of biology throughout the galaxy, and propagate our ecosphere forever. That sounds like a worthy goal to me. It's a lot better than being a cancer on the Earth, dragging its health down and down until it's incapable of reproduction. We live today in a time and a place of unique importance in all of history. We are at a crossroads, with paths that may lead to unimaginable prosperity for our planet, and other paths that lead to the very destruction of all life on our planet. Our communication has enhanced our intelligence and potential a thousand-fold, turning humanity into a hive-mind that can save or destroy everything we love. Americans, by historical and world standards, are wealthy beyond compare. The biggest thing we lack is a challenge worthy of our ability. We flail for a goal, and have settled on seeking money or power or fame. Most find the pursuit empty. How about a bigger goal: Go forth and multiply! Not just humanity, but our whole planet. We serve. We protect. And with humanity's technology and intelligence, we can help our world soar beyond the stars.

]]> Wed, 15 Feb 2006 09:38:54 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C322755863/E20060215093854/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060215104932/index.html Lyra Meadow (6) wrote this Valentine to one of her classmates:

"I love you, Bobby, and I don't care who knows it." ]]> Tue, 14 Feb 2006 10:49:32 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060215104932/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060214085022/index.html

When I was going into the second grade (in Chicago), the incoming students had a list of supplies they needed to bring to the first day: paper, pencils, glue... and "liquid crayons." I was excited about those. I had no idea what they were, but I imagined blending, pouring swirling, stuff. I was horribly disappointed when it turned out they were just magic markers. The liquid crayon term has since pretty much fallen into complete disuse.

]]> Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:50:22 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060214085022/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060213093007/index.html Mon, 13 Feb 2006 09:30:07 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060213093007/index.html http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060210131031/index.html Who will direct your life movie ? For me:

Ingmar Bergman
Your film will be 66% romantic, 24% comedy, 40% complex plot, and a $ 46 million budget. ]]> Fri, 10 Feb 2006 13:10:31 -0800 http://www.joedelta.com/blog/B1331004611/C1036734900/E20060210131031/index.html