"Steven C. Darnold" wrote:
>
> Kenneth Alan Boyd Ramsay wrote:
> >
> > I applaud the folks behind GNU and the Free Software
> > movement, but I recall an article in the British print
> > magazine "New Scientist", titled "The Tragedy of the
> > Commons", circa 1968. The fundamental problem is:
> > "That which belongs to everyone belongs to no one."
> > And then no one cares.
>
> The "Tragedy of the Commons" does not apply to free software.
> When I graze cattle on the commons, other cattle-owners are
> deprived of the opportunity to utilize that grass. However,
> my use of free software does not deprive other users of anything.
> In fact, the more people use free software, the better it is
> for all of them. Compare this to the commons, where the more
> people use it, the worse it becomes.
However, your point about others using the commons is not
harmful, ... if there is enough commons. In the Chacolithic
cultures what we see are stable populations, unlike every
culture since.
One of the archaeologists got out a map of the tels, and found
them very precisely placed every 3km along the Danube. Ergo,
they knew the exact size of the resource base that would be
required. I find it noteworthy that the homestead act resulted
in farms every quarter mile along the midwest roads, and those
roads were on a grid 2 miles (3km!) apart. The net result is
that the walk to the 'back fourty' was about a mile, and was
about as far as anyone cared to go to work a field.
Cyberspace is in the pioneer period right now. Space is not
the problem now, and wasnt then. There's plenty of space, the
question is how inconvenient it is to use compared with how
useful it is. Jamestown and Plymouth rock required enormous
capitalization, but as the technology was worked out, and
the right tools were found, it got down to the point where a
guy could take an axe and a gun and walk into the woods...
and tell everyone else to fuck off.
Windoz is like an English manor house on the Prairy; it is big
and drafty, expensive and hard to maintain, but it is a form
familiar enough to immigrants that they thought they knew what
to do with it. That was an illusion, but they are getting over
it. All the icons looked the same and worked the same no matter
what language you were born with, and the codepage issue seemed
to go away. But the English mnemonic hot-key setup is gonzo
faster and more functional.
I dunno if it is serendipitous, or inevitable, but the fact is
that English is based on word order, whereas most languages
change word endings to communicate meaning. But computers are
linear devices which fit English speaker habits of thought.
we all know that copy a to b would reverse the meaning if
you reverse the order, but not in a lotta languages.
If you wanna make money in this business, you learn English
cause most of the advice is in English, and you learn that
word order and instruction order are important. The multi-tasking
of windoz tries to make up for a lack of linear thinking, but
who would be so stupid and disorganized to require all that they
provide, but still be smart enough to produce work useful enough
to be paid for doing it?
Windoz is like dropping a Cummins Diesel in a rowboat so you can
go crappie fishing. In contrast, the Chalcolithic cultures had
appropriate tools and appropriate sized communities. They didnt
bother building stone monuments, and didnt bother building any
large administrative centers or great cities.
People are getting hip to the diff between impressive monumental
websites, and those modest little plain janes with real content.
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