Computers:

It turns out that my ability to cut the cost of internet usage in netcafes to 1/2 to 1/4 of current costs, is most ideally matched to a global economy that goes into depression, because in a depression people still need to communicate, and my cost advantage is ignored when people have a lot of disposeable income (who cares if the internet is 10 cents per hour instead of 40 cents).

It also turns out that my cost advantages are rendered irrelevant when the area has high commercial space rental rates, as I can only effect the cost of the computer hardware amortization with my technology. Thus I am most ideally positioned for depression squalor areas, where rentals are near 0.

You may want to read this article about another downwave of global depression being imminent:

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_08/maund120609.html

Being in highly illiquid investments (e.g. real estates and paper financial instruments) is very risky in this yoyo global economy.

Every dog has his day. Tables are turning on those who made their fortunes in the regime of irredeemable debt financial ponzi (the fiat) system.

Everything (except items manufactured by China) that was purchaseable with loans (i.e. college education, real estate, etc) is way overpriced due the ability to borrow way beyond means to purchase them. In short, mis-allocation. None of these activities are economic.

If you have a link to a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxIN79n4jVo

Simply add the time at the end, that you want the video to start playing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxIN79n4jVo#t=3m8s

The above link will start playing at 3:08 (3 mins and 8 secs).

Apparently you can do similarly to target a page in a PDF file:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/317/317300.html

> Easier for me to read a balance sheet and short Lehman.


And you were thus (heroic to those who know) player in the transistion to decentralization of the economy.

Understood that finance is an efficiency leverage. I respect those who enjoy that. I was only able to offer the real negative interest rates correlation with gold and the conceptual understanding of how deflation is equivalent to inflation (wealth draining effect) when the political tender is not constrained to a rare good.

I will email you if I have some near-term quantifiable opportunitities of sufficient size.


> I like your thoughts, but unfortunately they are too theoretical to be
> practical just yet... But I enjoy them.
> The philipino story is fascinating.
>
> You said before "here in Asia", and you refer again to asia in this
> e-mail. Are you based there now?

Yes I am in SE Asia, which I consider to be sort of a collection of un-united states, than countries. I still have a small corporate presence in USA, but these (2 corps) are scaling down as I am looking for new opportunities in Asia and global in focus (USA included).


Few more thought provoking tidbits, on the stored up energy in the technology realm and some real metrics:

============================
1) Computer power increased million-trillion times in boomers lifetime

http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/fp.html

"The first machine to solve ballistic tables was a Mark I built by IBM - it weighed five tons, had 750,000 parts and could do three operations per second."

Now desktop computers with a $100 3D graphics can do more than 1 trillion operations per second.

Imagine that in the lifetime of the typical baby boomer, cumulative computing power on earth has increased more than million-trillions fold (given millions of desktop computers in world now, versus only 1 Mark I in 1940s).

million-trillion has 18 zeros!

But put that in perspective to Avogradro's constant, it isn't even yet equivalent to the number of molecules in a gram of matter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro_constant
====================================================================

2) China's social networks get 2x more revenue per user because they sell entertainment addons and vanity upgrades, in addition to advertising:

http://digital.venturebeat.com/2009/03/19/the-worlds-most-lucrative-social-network-chinas-tencent-beats-1-billion-revenue-mark/

This has to do with the different culture:

http://cnreviews.com/business/research-insights/top-4-reasons-why-chinese-social-networking-different_20090810.html

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/05/chinese-social-networks-virtually-out-earn-facebook-and-myspace-a-market-analysis/

The culture is synergistic with the political hoops:

http://cnreviews.com/business/research-insights/top-4-reasons-why-chinese-social-networking-different_20090810.html

Thus I think there may be a massive opportunity for a decentralizing technology gaining for more economy-of-scale in information sharing (I would need to explain more what I mean by that). Google is failing in China and may exit the market:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/12/google-china-attacks/

The theories I mentioned are apparently in play right now.

I don't yet have a concrete suggestion on how to play it on the investment side. I might be too slow or behind the curve. But a single or small group of programmer(s) can light a match that burns the entire world, if he/they has/have the key insight-- similar in power to financial leverage.


====================================
3) We probably won't get to 1000 CPU cores (7 - 11 years, at 4 - 8 now with Moore's law in play) without changing our programming paradigms:

http://www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/Functional_Programming_Essence.html#Advantages

Thus cores idled and Moore's law failing in effect. I don't think so!

The keys are parallelism, composability, and decentralization of control. Efforts should be able to compose without having to be broken, i.e. as what is required now of our fiat system. It will have to break in order to move forward, because the political order is turning deflation into theft. Society can not prosper under theft and thus the break down in the rule of natural law and justice. But nature doesn't ever lose. Decentralization is happening right now on massive scale in Asia.

Somehow this info may help at some point in future to aid an epiphany on some opportunity you are studying.

All the best,
Shelby

Comment from Shelby a couple of posts back:

"makes sense when you realize that governments have been holding back a technology explosion, which will finally break out"

This reminds me about what I was thinking around 2000. It seemed to me that a huge new generation of technological innovation was about to evolve, but it was, in my opinion, choked off by the Federal Reserve continually raising interest rates over a period of one to two years.

Jim wrote:Comment from Shelby a couple of posts back:

"makes sense when you realize that governments have been holding back a technology explosion, which will finally break out"

This reminds me about what I was thinking around 2000. It seemed to me that a huge new generation of technological innovation was about to evolve, but it was, in my opinion, choked off by the Federal Reserve continually raising interest rates over a period of one to two years.

Well I view that as a lot of misallocated investment in dot.com fantasies, much of it not focused where it needed to be.

More about all of this is a new post I wrote today (the non-technical part is nearer to bottom):

http://lists.motion-twin.com/pipermail/neko/2010-January/002691.html

Posted followup in the Parrot discussion list:

http://lists.parrot.org/pipermail/parrot-dev/2010-January/003672.html
http://lists.parrot.org/pipermail/parrot-dev/2010-January/003673.html

Also the Squirrel forum:

http://squirrel-lang.org/forums/3619/ShowThread.aspx#3619

===========
ADD: writing code now:

https://goldwetrust.forumotion.com/technology-f8/psychology-t123.htm#2608
https://goldwetrust.forumotion.com/precious-metals-f6/how-will-we-physically-trade-gold-silver-at-5000-500-t61-105.htm#2610
http://lists.motion-twin.com/pipermail/haxe/2010-February/033337.html

Very interesting read about technology waves near end of this:

<--- click for article

I think the next transportation wave is the virtual movement of people on the internet.

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-kuang/design-innovation/foldable-display-same-size-double-screen (watch video)

These are probably not realistic:

http://www.readius.com/pocket-ereader/rollable-displays
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/08/video-flexible-oled-display-for-your-mjolnir-armor/

See prior 2 posts also.

Shelby wrote:...I think the next transportation wave is the virtual movement of people on the internet.

I realized that we will soon be able to transport our bodies electronically at the speed of light (even through the air without a wire).

The key is understanding that once we are able to connect computers directly to our central nervous system, then we can make the body think it is having a real experience that is different from the one the physical body is actually having. At this point, we can transport the body without moving it, to any reality occurring at other physical location.

Actually at this point, as long as we can nurture the brain (with artificial heart, lung, etc), we can live forever.

Inside our brain we will never realize it. We will just sense that we transported and that we are having that experience as if it was 100% real.

Of course the details are that we need to be able to model reality in sufficient fractal detail.

115+ MPG city, larger and more comfortable than the smallest scooters

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Honda-Pcxi-125cc-I-t326974.html&st=50#entry3324395 (why I think it is a hybrid, computer plays big role)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynl1aH6vdWg
http://world.honda.com/motorcycle-technology/index.html
http://www.allaboutbikes.com/manufacturers/honda/1087-thai-honda-pcx-scooter
http://www.gt-rider.com/thailand-motorcycle-forum/honda-pcx-125i-t6700.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMALgvjjMqo
http://www.motorcycle.in.th/article.php/The-Honda-PCX-125i-Scooter-Specification
http://www.jrmotor.com/pcx125i.html
http://www.motorcycle.in.th/forum/viewtopic.php?showtopic=932

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=id&u=http://motorwallpaper.blogspot.com/2009/12/pabrik-honda-rilis-pcx-125.html&ei=leptS7W7I9GHkAXu0O3UBw&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAoQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://motorwallpaper.blogspot.com/2009/12/pabrik-honda-rilis-pcx-125.html%26hl%3Den%26rls%3D%257Bmoz:distributionID%257D:en:%257Bmoz:official%257D%26sa%3DG

While programming on Copute, I had an epipheny...

Realize this post is important, because if the governments lose the ability to tax soon, then the current socialism will implode very quickly. I think this also explains why our civil liberties under attack. I think it also explains why the government will find it impossible to raise taxes significantly and will instead opt for the indirect inflation tax with simultaneous deflation of leveraged assets (see "Bernanke" link below), but this of course will force people to gold.

I have realized why the governments will eventually be forced to either implode or require an RFID chip implant, for anyone who wants to transact in the local, national, or global economy.

The reason is because the internet has enabled a technology that will destroy the ability of governments to tax based on current identification capabilities. Without tax, governments will implode and the central banks will be powerless to continue their scam (scroll down on that link to the "Bernanke" section).

I believe it is possible that this new technology will be exploited very soon, and it will topple the current socialism, fiat, and globalization scam. Or the socialism will win and force RFID implants on all people.

The simplest reason is because people can always transaction with physical barter (e.g. silver and gold), which of course can not be monitored by governments with current identification systems. However, this is not a threat to the governments, because it is very inefficient and thus most people won't do it since they now have more efficient methods. Physical barter is barbaric relic that will not be coming back to the mainstream:

https://goldwetrust.forumotion.com/precious-metals-f6/how-will-we-physically-trade-gold-silver-at-5000-500-t61-105.htm#2610

Shelby wrote:I think it is important to understand that digital efficiency is the only way to compete with the legal tender monopoly, which may just be giving us a little physical metal rope to hang ourselves with.

However, the internet has enabled a new technology, which no one has yet taken advantage of, but I think they soon will see the opportunity I will now describe.

First, realize that the power of the governments all rests on the ability to prevent people from using someone else's identity to hide taxable income:

http://www.pdic.gov.ph/index.php?nid1=10&nid2=2 (see Section 9)

There are billions of poor people around the world, who would gladly allow the use of their identity to route online sales income to, and I suspect that most of them would not feel threatened by the above Anti-Money Laundering law (AML), because they view themselves as poor and hopeless any way. They would take the money, I am sure. Even if they don't, it is quite easy for people to steal identities and earn income from doing that. Proving an identity basically amounts to faxing some documents, such as copy of passport, recent utility bill, and a bank statement. None of this can be 100% tied to a physical person.

So someone just has to create a program which gives control over the income to person who is actually earning it, but routes the record of the income through the other person's identity. This could in fact be done with a P2P program that has no centralized repository, and thus is impossible to shutdown. The actual financial institution, e.g. Paypal, would still be receiving all the correct identification that they require, it is just that the account would be controlled by someone else (actually by P2P program, and in anonymous untrackable way, which is possible via anonymous P2P proxies). You see a program can login into someone's account, if the program has the password, and even the use CAPTCHA will not stop the program, because they can be solved by humans who are then given free access to porn sites for answering the CAPTCHA (God puts everything on earth for a reason).

====EDITED FROM THIS POINT FORWARD====

So it would work like this. Someone wants to sell goods and/or services online using someone else's identity to receive the payment (even offline, but will record the transaction online), thus wants to avoid all taxation. They create an account in the above hypothetical anonymous P2P program. Another person wants to earn money by submitting another person's identity, they also create an account (in the other person's identity) at say Paypal (or any other mutually agreed payment site) but the submission of the creation (and potentially the supporting documentation, i.e. faxes and emailed documents can be sent from a program) is actually performed by this anonymous P2P program. The P2P is a distributed database, it doesn't live in any one place, so it is impossible to shut it down. Paypal just gets a normal account, it can't see that anything peculiar has occurred. The P2P program then takes control of the Paypal account, then it pays for things that each of the two involved parties want to buy (according to their percentage split, perhaps 99%/1%, which is much less than the tax that would have been paid). Neither person can be tracked because the anonymous P2P program is acting on their behalf, and is controlling the Paypal account. It is impossible for Paypal to know whether a program or a real person is doing the login and operating the account (if this seems like magic to you, it is not, it is very simple to do). Neither person has any risk, because the database of their actions is distributed and encrypted in a special way which prevents reverse engineering. To be extra safe, each person could connect to the internet from a WiFi connection and pay for the WiFi account using this special Paypal account, thus even if the authorities track down the IP address back to the WiFi account, it leads the authorities in a circle that mathematically can not be solved. The only procedure I can think of that Paypal could use to detect this, would be to require new accounts do a live real chat on web cam to prove visual identity match on id photo. However, a hacker can change the photo on any document and put on a life-like mask, even a program can be created which sufficiently morphs the face of someone in a video (this is not magic). The incentive depends on how high the govt tax goes. At 100% tax, no one has a choice but do this.

With an RFID implant, it is possible to require that all regulated transactions must identify by this radio frequency implanted device, but the only way this can not be subverted, is there must be an encrypted key database that only the government controls and all transactions have to verify against this database (against each individual RFID public key). This is technically feasible, if society is willing to force this.

However, there is the possibility of virtual currencies developing (like the very successful gaming currencies in China) which do not interface with existing banking systems, and thus could be entirely P2P anonymous, and thus no need for stealing any identities. The argument against these succeeding is that since they are anonymous, then there is no way to be sure they are backed by any thing of real value, and no way to extract real goods from them. I originally thought that too and dismissed the idea. But the $billions success of the virtual gaming currencies in China, has changed my perspective. The thing is that the competitive money (fiat) also is not backed by anything of real value. The only requirement for a successful currency, is that it is popular and thus you can buy things with it. As the govts increase taxes and oppression (as in China), then people could reach out in desperation to these virtual currencies, or especially if there is some very popular activity which naturally fits such a virtual currency. And actually it is possible to back such a virtual currency with something real. That is programming code. It has a real value, represented by real labor and it can be stored in a P2P database and protected by public-key encryption so that only the creator receives the virtual currency credits. Not only programming code, but any kind of information, including recipes, techniques, engineering, etc. Then there can develop a blackmarket that trades these virtual currencies for actual physical goods. Once that happens, then the virtual currency is actually backed by real hard assets in reality. The market will set the backing, by the price is assigns. The market will be able to judge the growth of the money supply of this virtual currency. The following isn't necessary, as I think information itself as real value that the black market will pay for, but as another possible outcome, lets say that the creator of this new virtual currency, promises (anonymously) that he will back every unit of the currency by a set amount of precious metals. He then loans (at 0% interest) the currency into existence by letting people use it to buy things for free on the internet (say programs, and I already described where these initial "free" programs would come from). Let's say he promises (anonymously) to back the currency at the ratio of his % fee on all transactions (in other words he invests his earnings unselfishly in backing the currency with gold, anonymously though). The market can then determine how truthful the backing is. For example, it is possible the creator offers to give an encrypted treasure map to anyone who turns over anonymously a given number of units of the virtual currency. Since this gold was perhaps planted well in advance, then the creator can not be tracked down if he wise enough. All of the above paragraph happens anonymously via the technology of encrypted P2P and using a WiFi access account paid for with your anonymous payment. If the govt puts an stop to all anonymously paid internet access, then a market demand for stolen access accounts will be created, such as stolen cell phone and iPod access accounts. Also I think it is really hard for the government to do this, if some activity becomes popular. The govt has tried to stop people from sharing their copyrighted music files, but it is still a very popular activity. I am sure the elites see this failure of their power to control popular P2P activities. The government can not stop a hacker from spreading a virus which opens everyone's computer to be an anonymous proxy, thus shielding deleting our IP address and replacing it with someone else's IP address for each activity we do. I really think the govt is threatened by the internet if they push too hard on taxes. And I think shutting down the internet would thrust the masses into a stampede into gold and silver and topple the govts.

========HERE IS THE BIG EUREKA============
After writing that above, I realized a way it could be accomplished. I realized there is no need to hide anyone's identity. Realize that all one needs to avoid taxes is massive inflation. If the amount of money you earned during 2009, is 1/2 of it's value by the time you have to pay your taxes on April 2010, then assuming you invested in something which appreciated at the rate of inflation, then your effective tax cut in half. So now I realize that identity has nothing to do with it! The title of this post is wrong. All that is needed is to back the currency with allocated gold+silver. And when people cash out, let them take the physical gold+silver, that way they have no capital gains (they haven't sold the gold+silver). If this became popular, it would be a self-feeding spiral, because gold+silver would rise in fiat price even faster.

Actually people can do this now. They should plow their income into gold & silver. The currency idea would just make it a little bit easier and less costly for people who only have a small income in online sales, letting them aggregate until it was worth shipping to them.

If the govts react by inducing deflation, then they are toast! They know the debt system will implode if they don't continue to inflate the digits. In that case, everyone (even those who did not use this system) would be walking away from their tax obligations, because who would want to pay last years tax that had increased by a factor of say 10, because of hyper-deflation.
======================================

So thus, I think even the RFID chip can not help stop the P2P revolution coming.

The governments will be unable to keep the taxes low, because the welfare states are huge and the cost of maintaining the debt loads are unfathomable. Some people may find it easier to just pay tax if it is low enough, or form a corporation in a lower tax haven, but US Citizens can not do the latter and even if relinquish US citizenship, are liable for taxes for 10 years! One way around this is to route all income to a trusted relative in a lower tax jurisdiction, but if the relative doesn't control the business, the IRS might send you a bill any way. We are indeed heading into turbulent times where the high tax nations will be forced to try to trap their citizens in a high tax regime.

I am not advocating that anyone do any of these things. I am trying to help the governments prepare by presenting this information so that the governments can put their best research into trying to defeat this in advance and I think also realize that they are doomed and it is impossible for them to impose higher taxes. They will just force people to the above system, and they will set in motion the path that will ultimately require socialists to demand RFID tagging of the entire global population. But I think the timing is such that the socialists will fail and we will have a rebirth of freedom. I think maybe the next epoch (100 years from now?), the socialists will win and achieve RFID tagging. But I could be wrong, and they are able to move all the way to RFID tagging on this cycle.

I suspect the top people in elite (CFR, Bilderbergs, Trilateralists) already know this.

Disclaimer: I am not providing tax nor business nor legal advice. These are only my technological observations and I provide no warranties of any kind. Consult your own advisor, and I seek safe harbor from anything any reader might do or not do. I am not responsible for you.

https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=6816644117&topic=4536

When on the page above, then click "Last" at top, right, then on the last page, click to go to page 23, where you will find my comments near the bottom of page 23:

# Shelby It is time to replace Facebook. I am working on it. 'Nuff said. Idiots at Facebook, people must own their own data and it should not get locked into one website which are data jails.
Yesterday at 9:29pm

# Shelby Facebook only cares about the rate of usership growth and is not listening to what users want, which is to be able to hide their friends list from their friends. Facebook is creating a big opportunity from an upstart company to grab marketshare, one that will give users the features they want. And which will give users ownership of all their data, which they can then export and do what they want with. This closed model has to end. OpenSocial was not the answer, because it wasn't true decentralized. Facebook has now been warned.
Yesterday at 9:58pm

# Shelby And their user interface programming sucks. Too modal, hard-to-learn for novices.
Yesterday at 10:00pm

And the immediate responses were:

# Ciky The time has come, since I use facebook only for chatting I don't need to have connections which I decided to remove to prevent all friends to see my friends which could possible be their foes.

When the Google will release Google Wave final version, I deactivate account from this project since with the Buzz feature it will be comparable to facebook in comunication way.
6 hours ago

# Axel ... Please, can you add this feature, please?

Thanks
about an hour ago

I added a new comment to explain more:

# Shelby I suspect the reason Facebook can not allow this feature is because their $billions valuation model is based on perhaps $100 per user future income, and thus they need the viral growth that comes from forcing everyone to show all of their friends, who all of their friends are (no privacy).

There are 688+ comments explaining why there are valid reasons that people need the feature. From Google search rankings, I can see it is a very big frustration that many people have with Facebook. Ditto friendster. I do not know about MySpace?

Afaics, Google Wave is not about privacy of your data, nor ownership on your data. It is a protocol for live, interactive, group chat (and eventually other forms of rich group collaboration, probably including non-live). This is an interesting development, but it won't apply the problem being discussed here. Google Wave is reasonably more narrow in scope than the problem I am writing about, which are data jails, because our data is hosted by a provider with a vested interest in the control over of data.

It seems Google Wave does allow for P2P data interaction, so it is a step in right direction, but afaics (from a quick look at it), it is not addressing the fundamental relationship between programming and data. This is rather something I am working on. I am not going to promote my work by name here (although you could find it with Google if you knew my last name which I share with Demi and Roger), out of respect for Facebook. I will see them in the marketplace of competition soon...

Thus, I think you are wasting your time to ask Facebook to add this feature, but it will be interesting to see if they cave in and thus destroy their $billions valuation model.

Then I added this:

hahaha, I just login to post my comment above, and now I see my last name appears when we are login. I tried to go hide my last name out-of-respect to Facebook, but Facebook won't let me do it!

Facebook is trying to create a market valuation based on eliminating user privacy. It can never stand the test of time that the P/E ratio (decades of income built into the valuation model), Facebook should (will eventually) be revalued by investors before (as) they lose big time.

This reminds of the sort of trap that all interference create, the pilots of the airlines wanted first priority to chose their preferred flights, and it turned out by computer model that when pilots were not given this monopoly, they actually ended up with more choice and better results for themselves.

I write a lot about economics and the failure of monopolies, copyrights, patents, and the financial system we have now which is doomed.

My plans for Copute will not have this problem. More importantly, the concept of Copute, is to let people control their own data (independent from any single website), and thus to put no barriers to the features that the users want. Then I will provide the ability for the programmers all over the world to give the users the features they want. Copute is the language we need to make this "cooperation" (integration, i.e. mashups) happen.

Copute is not only for social networks. It is for everything. Every kind of computer application you can imagine, will benefit from it.

There are only a few (maybe let's say 1000) people in the world capable of creating a computer language, of those, most of them are their own worst enemy (their ego can't allow themselves to get the basics correct):

http://code.google.com/p/haxe/issues/detail?id=100 (For over a year, I tried to work with HaXe, instead of create my own)

One of the key aspects of Linus Torvald's personality (the creator of Linux, which has challenged Microsoft Windows), is AFAIK he is apparently humble and very open to cooperating with people to get the optimum designs implemented.


I added one more comment at Facebook:

One more teaching.

Socialism (pooling of interests, being surety to a friend, insurance, fiat money, etc) are mathematically GUARANTEED failure. I mean that in a strict mathematical proof sense, as as well as common sense.

Thus why should individuals not own their data? Pooling of data interests is GUARANTEED failure.

Just as we have the nations now pooling their debt money machine to try to prevent failure of the unpayable debt levels (because in our financial system all money is created as debt), all such socialism eventually fails, when there are no more producers for the parasites to leech.

Own your data. That will be a good first step to putting our world back on capitalism. The western nations have now adopted all 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto. Wikipedia it (and go into History of edits in case someone has deleted the 10 planks, as was done to the original Bible, when the 2nd commandment was replaced so that the churches could be corrupted with idolization).

Btw, all this capitalistic economic wisdom is in the Bible. And I am not referring to the nutty churches, and zealots who infringe on others freedoms and rights.

More on this here:

https://goldwetrust.forumotion.com/economics-f4/is-capitalism-or-is-socialism-increasing-t18.htm#2788

===========================
ADD: Terse layman's update on my work progress

I am making really good progress on the hard part of Copute, the really intense part of the design and implementation process. It is really kicking me hard, severe headaches, exhaustion, and of course the feet cramps have spread into my bones such as fingers and shoulders. I think i am near to point of taking a break and then trying to reduce to a more normal schedule. I will trying to get away from writing entirely. I need to get away from public comments too, because most of what i have to say is critical, because there is so much work that needs to be done. So best for me to shut up and work.

Code is being posted at following locations, but I haven't yet uploaded most of the code that is already written:

http://copute.com/dev/docs/Copute/ref/
http://code.google.com/p/copute/issues/list
http://code.google.com/p/copute/source/browse/

Agreed in at least the sense that sitting and doing theoretical discussion on computer is highly unproductive and those who are out there in real world doing something each day, often find and execute on more opportunies and also have more interaction and real emotional contentment.

The mind+computer are very powerful and useful tools, but they have to be used judiciously, else they become counterproductive.


> Maybe our problem is that we are smart enough to "figure it out," but in
> reality,logic is not the only key -- and can even get in the way. Maybe
> it's God's way of putting everyone on a more even playing field, where a
> good heart and faith can override even the sharpest brain. Brains are
> good, but they often want to be the big cheese and run the whole show.
>
> Shelby Moore wrote:
>> It is all in front of me, I just have to execute.
>>
>> So the issue right now is getting my priorities straight.
>>
>> I have truely been focused on the wrong things. I was too focused on
>> the
>> gold price, as if hitting a homerun could enable me to...
>>
>> I don't know what it is about my personality that gets stuck in ruts. I
>> hate it! I wish I knew how I could avoid that!

JavaScript causes bugs:

http://code.google.com/p/copute/issues/detail?id=15

Because it inherently doesn't drive composability:

http://code.google.com/p/copute/issues/detail?id=15#c1

Fundamentally increasing composability is increasing entropy (increasing the free market), which is the natural direction of the nature (universe, man, etc).

Copute will:

http://code.google.com/p/copute/issues/detail?id=16

What appears to be going on is Facebook is trying to find commercial ways to monetize their user base, in order to justify their $billions valuation.

About Facebook's plan to force users to share all their personal preferences, and what users are saying:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=4&entryid=3221003
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-further-reduces-control-over-personal-information
https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=382978412130

Nils Green, hour ago wrote:Time to think about dropping my Facebook account. This really sucks !!!!!!!!

Anna Louise, hour ago wrote:Wow, this is probably one of the most terrible moves that Facebook has made in a while. I liked the new redesign, but why can't I just choose my own text for my interests? Are you kidding? I don't want to be in a "network" because I like a certain book or activity--I just want to write it on my profile. Forget it, Facebook.

Dec Shinobi, hour ago wrote:This is a disgrace. The December changes were bad enough. You are repeatedly damaging your relationship with your userbase by eroding the control of their data.

Gus Allen, hour ago wrote:Over the years, I've gone along with a lot of the changes over the years at Facebook, but this one really makes me upset and uncomfortable. I feel like I have lost a lot of privacy and don't like it at all. I really wish there was a way to be able to list my interests and favorites without having my profile appear on the community pages or fan pages. Since there isn't, it looks like I won't have any interests or favorites listed on my page.

Jake Bell, hour ago wrote:this is crap

Mindaugas Aleksiejus, hour ago wrote:Fb is really sucks !!!!!

Kyle Stephen Smith, hour ago wrote:Screw you and drop dead Facebook! I've always hated you anyway, and this is why. Very confusing and annoying tactics right from the beginning. I'll never like you Facebook. All my friends are going back to MySpace. You've commited suicide, Now you're gonna lose lots of members, and have millions of people mad at you, why do you have to be so stupid? Go dry hump a cactus!

Adina-Raluca Stoica, hour ago wrote:DISLIKE.
will have to remove everything about me from FB... Yay procrastination. BOO Facebook!

Jeff Evarts, hour ago wrote:PROVIDED the reports have it right, this change is really something that will drive folks away. Please consider changing it back.

Ariella Fiore, hour ago wrote:I am a huge fan and user of FB. Well, I was. This pisses me off and makes me reconsider how I want to use it. Not ok. Do you hear me, connections making engineers?? NOT. OKAY.

Frank Rooney, hour ago wrote:
DISLIKE. People should be able to make "connections" and decide separately who they want to share them with. The connections should not be automatically made public!

Alexander Shenkin, 59 mins ago wrote:DISLIKE. DO NOT SHARE MY INFORMATION WITH PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF MY SPECIFICALLY CONTROLLED NETWORKS. For those interested about why this is such a bad thing, see: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-further-reduces-control-over-personal-information

Here is what some Facebook users were saying after my prior posts on March, Discovered a MAJOR competitive weakness in Facebook:

Francis, March 7 at 4:41am wrote:It doesnt look like this is ever going to be fixed. I would really like to know what facebook's official reason for this is.

John, March 9 at 12:12pm wrote:LET ME HIDE MY FRIENDS LIST!!!!!!
THIS IS A HUGE INVASION OF PRIVACY.
I WILL BE SOON WRITING MY MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT!

Gabriel, March 14 at 1:47pm wrote:fuck this sucks want to hide my friends for everyone

James, March 21 at 2:14am wrote:this is screwed over. its all so that 3rd party apps can use our friends for their own money making schemes

Vitaly, March 21 at 9:30am wrote:It was so much better before, when it was possible to hind the list for everybody, including friends. It`s the worst change FB has ever made.

Robin, March 23 at 10:31pm wrote:Stevie, what you describe is a way to hide your friend list from total strangers who visit your profile.
There used to be a way to hide this list from (some of) the people which you accepted as actual friends. This privacy-setting is now gone. Friends will ALWAYS see your other friends.
I don't want that, and I don't like that Fbook never warned me about this. I had a list of people I decided to follow because I thought their contributions were interesting, but I did not want them to bother my actual friends with invites, farmville and such. So I hid my friend list from those. This is no longer possible.

Hassan, March 24 at 12:14pm wrote:this stupid! Everyone can see and read what my friends write to me. Moreover, they bother them. Facebook has no privacy! I will STOP using it.

Brian, March 26 at 10:51am wrote:I think facebook needs to completely rethink their strategy... the problem is their starting point.. the whole point of facebook is to connect people with contacts.. but not all contacts are friends... you need to be able to add contacts with limited access by default.. then you should be able to start categorizing the type of contacts... ie.. friends, co-workers, family, partners, playmates.. etc... each personal category group should have common controls that the facebook account holder should be able to manage and control the level of information shared with each category of contacts... trust me this will be facebooks undoing.. another social networking site will engineer this eventually and all the facebook sheep will be flocking over to the next latest and greatest.. such is the nature of technology advancements. I just hope it comes sooner then later.

Joe, March 26 at 2:13pm wrote:Well, it looks like they just don't care... So I think that og they will not change this, another company will come up with something better. In this bussines things can change very fast. It is just not fair to tale away the possibility to show your friends just to whom you want!

, April 11 at 12:03am wrote:...it sucks anyone trying to stalk you or get info on you can just add enough amount of your friends and that's it! Fuck FB!!!!

Ken, April 13 at 1:43pm wrote:This USED to be an option, but is no longer. I also like to be able to hide my friends list from my friends (i used to do this by group, for instance, my work buddys.) Why was this option taken away?

Joe, wrote:I've seen on the news that in Germany FB may face big problems because of this "privacy issue". I think EU will fix this sooner or later. I cannot accept that they forced users into this! Why should my friends know about eachothers???

Geni, April 14 at 4:20am wrote:I couldn't agree more! Some of mine are complete opposites and if someone is just collecting friends , or ur ex did, then it will be all a complete mess. Hope Eu do something about it, the last Consumer Protection Commissioner was really spot on the job.Will wait n see what will come out now

Jason, 10 hours ago wrote:why dont they just have the friggin option to make the list private! It's forced socialization! hahaha... but seriously it's annoying

The point of this is say you have a photo on your web server (your web site), and normally you want it load from the copy in browser's (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc) local disk cache, so that it loads very fast and doesn't have to come from the web server. But let's say you have programmed a feature on your website in Javascript that enables you to login to your website and change this photo on the webserver and so you want to see the new version immediately. But how can Javascript inside the browser tell the browser to go get the new copy? The other problem is how to tell all the proxies between your webserver and your browser to not send you to old copy from their disk caches.

One way is to change the name of the file. This will insure that everyone else will also see the new version of the image immediately when they load the webpage containing the <img> tag pointing to the new name. However, there are disadvantages to changing the name. First it requires that you dynamically generate all web pages which reference the image file (instead of using static html files), which means you MUST do server programming and places more load on your webserver (important if you are building a high traffic website). It is much more freedom (unconflated) to set it once with my .htaccess solution on the server, then dynamically choose to override the cache from Javascript on demand without having to send a special request to the server to change the name of the file and change all the webpages that use that file. Second, it pollutes your name space. Third, it forces the world to reload your new version of the image, instead of allowing the various caches on the web to decide when they want to check for new content. In some cases (e.g. changing the profile photo on a social networking personal page), it may not be so important that the entire world up date instantly, it may only be important that you see your new image on your page immediately. The others users can always force a reload of their browser (Ctrl+f5) if they want to be sure they are seeing the latest version of your profile photo immediately (instead of waiting for their caches to decide). So thus the following solution...

The idea is to send a request for the image (from Javascript in the browser) and append a query parameter (the image file name + '?' and some random numbers or text) that changes each time you want a new copy of the image. But the problem is that caches will tend to ignore the query on an image file extension (e.g. .jpg, .gif, etc) and return the old copy of the image from their local disk cache, even though they are strictly not supposed to as each query should return a new copy from the webserver. The caches assume that a request on an image file extension will always generate the same copy, unless the webserver says otherwise when they originally requested it.

So to get correct solution, we need to be able to tell the webserver to send "no-cache" headers for images that were requested with a query string from the browser. It was really difficult to figure out how to do that from an .htaccess configuration file for the popular Apache webserver. I could only find one convoluted way of doing, which is to use the cryptic mod_rewrite (ReWriteCond and ReWriteRule) to set an environment variable and then condition the setting of the no-cache headers on that environment variable. Whew! Only took me a couple of hours to figure out and test (in 3 browsers, IE6, Google Chrome, and FF3.5.3).

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_rewrite.html#rewriterule
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_headers.html#examples
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/core.html#locationmatch

In my prior email below, I had suggested using <FilesMatch> Apache directive, but that doesn't work, because it only matches the file name and can't match the "?" that signifies existence of a query string. <LocationMatch> would work, but it is not allowed in .htaccess files. So here is the corrected .htaccess code which uses mod_rewrite to detect the existence of query string in the request url (uri):

Code:

# Tell browsers to never cache requests on images containing GET query string (so we can force reload from JavaScript in browsers)
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !^$
RewriteRule \.(ico|gif|jpe?g||bmp|png)$ - [NC,env=image_file_with_query_string:]
Header set Cache-Control "no-cache" env=image_file_with_query_string
Header set Pragma "no-cache" env=image_file_with_query_string
Header set Expires "-1" env=image_file_with_query_string


==========================================================
Prior Email Follows
==========================================================
When I try to submit feedback it fails with error:

Warning: fopen(feedback_new/5460.html) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in
/home/martin/irt.org/mainwebsite_html/feedback.php on line 260
Can't write to error file


Please add following important fix comment to following page:

http://www.irt.org/script/416.htm

Name: Shelby
Email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Useful? Very worth reading
Length? Just right
Technical? Not technical enough

Comment: This will not work reliably until you configure your web server to set no cache headers of query string requests. For an Apache .htaccess file in the same (or parent) directory as the images on the web host:

Code:

# Tell browsers to never cache requests on images containing GET query string (so we can force reload from JavaScript in browsers)
<FilesMatch "\.(ico|gif|jpe?g|bmp|png)\?">
Header set Cache-Control "no-cache"
Header set Pragma "no-cache"
Header set Expires "-1"
</FilesMatch>

http://www.irt.org/script/416.htm

Code:

<img src="picture.gif" name="myImageName">

<script language="JavaScript"><!--
function reloadImage() {
    var now = new Date();
    if (document.images) {
        document.images.myImageName.src = 'picture.gif?' + now.getTime();
    }
    setTimeout('reloadImage()',10000);
}

setTimeout('reloadImage()',10000);
//--></script>

===============
MORE THOUGHTS:

> Using "no cache" html headers does not always work, even if use php
> mheaders like:
> <?php
> header('Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT');
> header('Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate');
> header('Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0', FALSE);
> header('Pragma: no-cache');
> ?>
> one has no real control over what the browser does with its cache.

Afaik for a PHP extension, that can only fail if you have a GET url with exact samy query string (part after the ?). Some caches may be tempted to ignore the server's admonition when the GET url is unchanged. But this is rarely the case now that RESTful APIs are becoming so widespread.

For images and other non-script URIs, the only way to be 100% sure, is to change the file name. Because caches are really tempted to not reload image data (probably due to misconfigured webservers that send no-cache for everything). However, providing a different query string on each access, coupled with sending no-cache headers, seems to work correctly in IE6, FF3.53, and Chrome, at least over the ISP proxy I am using here in Philippines. It could very well be the proxy is doing it. So as you say, there really is no certainty.

Maybe I should give some more thought to changing the file name instead.

===============
Note: When using FilesMatch, need to declare case-insensitive match using (?i):

Code:

# Tell browsers to cache images for up to one year
<FilesMatch "(?i)\.(ico|gif|jpe?g||bmp|png)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=31536000"
</FilesMatch>

Steve Jobs (Apple CEO):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob_GX50Za6c

I think this is very relevant to my assertion that we are at the end of the Industrial Revolution, that the current burgeoning socialism is due to the massive unemployment resulting from automation, and that the internet and the computer is the only (next free market, entropy increasing) solution:

https://goldwetrust.forumotion.com/economics-f4/changing-world-order-t32-75.htm#2977
https://goldwetrust.forumotion.com/economics-f4/inflation-or-deflation-t9-360.htm#2953 (I added some evidence to bottom of this post today)

Steve Balmer (Microsoft CEO):
"Developers, developers, developers" (networking and lots of innovation to come on the edge of the network, i.e. P2P!!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-VuC7qUfyw

Bill Gates (Microsoft CTO):
Talks about importance of program interoperability (points directly to my Copute.com project):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9X-vHJ_Z-I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eDAnUUCf6o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q6yUVNaND0 ("will change the world")

http://investophoria.blogspot.com/2010/04/opportunity-in-making.html?showComment=1273077260682#c623424447795636756

Shelby wrote:When I wrote "twilight of Industrial Revolution", I mean (just as when the Agricultural revolution ended and Industrial Revolution began), that in near future most people will not gain meaningful employment (renumeration) from manufacturing. China was handed a rotting/decadent paradigm to drive their economy into a bubble just as their boomer bubble will peak by 2020 and massive demographic decline coming in China.

Ever moving change is simply the 1856 Law of Thermo, which states that disorder (entropy) of the universe is always trending to maximum. Nature (universe) is always trying to break down matter into more granular actors (i.e. more possibilities).

Thus the next revolution for employment is in the software or the design of things that are physically manufactured (and/or digitally copied). Many more possibilities. The future is one where I can have the exact thing I want, not 1 of 1 million copies shared by 1 million others. I want running shoes in a certain design, color, heel height, thicker insole, gel insole, etc.. There will still be the economy-of-scale of mass production, because the computer (robots run by them) will know how to organize the manufacture such as single copies are produced on a mass production assembly line. Think of CNC machines for an example. Nanotechnology will play a huge role as well.

Much of the work will not be one-off design, but programming to generalize design choices. There will also be a lot of one-off design too, the Italians will still find a market for their aesthetics, etc.

Also agriculture is dying. It is being homogenized and even Monsanto is designing seeds which won't reproduce and spread their infertility to nearby natural plants. This is to be expected as vested interests try to squeeze more out of a dying economic sector. There is almost no profit to be made in agriculture, because primary costs are oil. The EROEI in agriculture is negative. There is a lot more to say about this, you can refer to Steve D'Angelo's writings (SRSrocco at my forum and the jasonhommelforum.com).

Again read the post above, and watch the video where Steve Jobs points out that humans don't have more efficient locomotion than condors and other animals, but because we are tool builders we are more efficient (e.g. the bicycle)! That is so profound. Kudos to Steve Jobs (despite he many blunders mostly regarding not being able to work with others and tolerate a free market and entropy! I wish Steve would call me so I can help him!)

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/diaspora_project_building_the_anti-facebook.php

Update Sept 16 they release alpha code:

http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=19198390-1A64-67EA-E4F1045D8882BBDC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA

Digitizing books with a CAPTCHAs:

http://recaptcha.net/

There is a new one that serves an ad as a CAPTCHA, see example here:

http://s8ph.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=register

Neat so we can earn money on our signups.

http://www.caseyresearch.com/displayCdd.php?id=501

Goodbye, Facebook

By Vedran Vuk

About seven years ago, I stopped watching TV. Well, almost; I still occasionally rent a movie or watch a show online. But I haven’t aimlessly flipped channels in years. As a student back then, my decision was a financial one. But as time went on, I was content without the distraction.

At first I had all these strange concerns about doing away with television. What would I do when bored? What if I got out of touch with popular culture? Surely people would talk about new shows at cocktail parties, leaving me clueless and silent.

Of course, these were completely silly thoughts. After all this time, I’m well caught up. With an occasional glance at any news site’s entertainment section, one can easily track the newest shows and avoid being the oddball at the next party. The Sopranos, Jersey Shore, and Desperate Housewives hardly require ever watching the shows to maintain a conversation on them. Further, YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix can fill in the blanks for most things worth seeing.

Recently, another decision filled by head with silly concerns – quitting Facebook. How would I keep in touch with friends? What about the networking aspect of the site? Would I lose future opportunities by not being connected? How would old friends find me?

Keeping in touch was the simplest barrier to overcome. In fact, this is one of the best reasons to quit Facebook. Suddenly I was calling friends that I hadn’t spoken to in ages. And since they could no longer find me on the site, they were calling me out of the blue as well. Beforehand, we would communicate through Facebook’s IM service or wall messages. But no matter how frequently one sends online messages and posts, it’s simply not the same as picking up the phone. In the past few months, I’ve had a much better time catching up with friends directly rather than checking their profiles and updates.

At first, the site was a great way to contact friends. However, over time, it encourages laziness in your relationships. After graduating from college, I had many friends that I wanted to stay in contact with. Naturally, Facebook was a simple way to do it. But years of talking to them primarily over the Internet caused many of those friendships to dwindle. In the long run, the ease of connecting backfired. Without the website, I would have likely called them more often or written extended emails instead.

Social networking sites give a false sense of remaining connected. In reality, there’s no replacement for personal interaction.

The loss of networking was something worth considering as well. But my experience with unemployment recently dissipated this dilemma. Despite Facebook’s label as a “social networking website,” the networking benefits aren’t nearly as useful as often lauded. The online experience isn’t personal enough to aid a job search significantly. One needs to develop stronger bonds necessary to ask for small favors on the job hunt. The friends whom I most communicated with outside of Facebook provided the greatest help in the job search. Social networking sites allow one to build a large network of contacts, but the connections are on weak foundations.

My final reason for departing was the site’s enormous drain on time. After leaving, I felt relief. No longer would I spend valuable time creating updates and checking profiles. The feeling was equivalent to no longer wasting time by flipping the channels on my old television. My productivity is definitely up since the decision.

With many new technologies, we need to step back and really see what they’re doing for us. With the dot-com bubble, everyone saw Internet retail as the future. They weren’t completely wrong. EBay and Amazon are gigantic companies, but they aren’t the revolutions that everyone envisioned. The same goes for social networking websites. Yes, these sites can add an extra layer to your social life. But ultimately, nothing beats staying in touch the old-fashioned way. For that reason, I’ve decided that a handful of good friends in direct contact are more valuable than a thousand on Facebook.