That which appears complex is usually simple...

The market of the future? (Commoditization of the universe)

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:46:12 GMT

Today I've been reading this book, Orwell's Revenge: The 1984 Palimpest. It is basically a hashing-out of how the author believes the Internet and instant communication will bring about an anarcho-capitalist utopia.

One thing that has struck me, though, is his discussion of currencies...he claims that state-issued currencies are unnecessary under a system where perfect communication is available, and the result will be private currencies like in the 1800s. I think perhaps this is not a bad idea, in theory, but he didn't take it far enough.

In a society with billions of people trying to trade things at once, each connected to a limitless communications network, I believe that the idea of currency itself may be unnecessary.

What is really going on when I say I will write code on project X for a company for an hour, or when I say I want to sell off 3 shares of Y stock, or when try to trade my old TV set for some cash? I have something of value that I wish to ultimately exchange for something else, the thing I would spend the money on...a new LCD TV, a steak. I am trying to, in a roundabout way, trade my old TV set for a steak. As long as transaction costs are a large issue, it makes sense to try to assign 'value' to each item and use a currency. But, if transaction costs were truly nonexistent, then this would be a poorly designed scheme; the value of everything is arbitrary, and based on the perceived value of a 'currency', which doesn't actually represent anything except itself. This distorts the relative values of things and causes inequities in each trade. It also allows the currency-issuer, be they government or independent bank, to directly manipulate the value of something someone else 'owns'.

All of this can be avoided in this future zero transaction cost scenario by rethinking the way trades have been done since the beginning of time: one-to-one, one buyer to one seller. And this leads me to my idea...

We would need a trading system, where everyone inputs what they want to trade, what they want to trade it for, and how much, what quality, etc. When you input 'old TV' -> 'steak', it would go out and examine all possible combinations of trades that start with your old TV and end with a steak. Some routes through the graph could result in you getting 1oz of flank meat, while others could result in you getting 32oz of kobe tenderloin. One possible route may include you trading your TV for a set of luggage, then the luggage for a car stereo, then the stereo for the meat. And, perhaps your TV is worth way more than the steak you want...in this case, other items in your pre-entered 'want' list may appear as possible results. In this way, you get the best possible deal for your goods, based on nothing more than how people value what they want versus what they have. The market would value everything perfectly, and nobody could control what anyone else owned in the way that a currency is manipulated, unless what the person was owning was something you would expect to be manipulable in that manner.

Everything could be traded like this, even public and/or private currencies, of course. The fact that currencies were involved would not harm the process, since each trade chain would be blind to what was being traded. So, if you thought cash was a good investment, you could buy it and use it later...or never use it at all. By merchants maintaining a 'want list' and you an 'available list', you could walk around at the mall and purchase goods by automatically transferring from your available list to the merchant's want list, through the best trade chain.

This sort of thing wouldn't work, of course, without near-perfect transportation as well as near-perfect communication. This is something the book glosses over a lot, but I do think it is something that may eventually be solved. In addition, it would certainly help if P=NP, but surely problems of computational complexity can be solved eventually for any arbitrarily sized problem, even that of finding the shortest path on a graph as big as all commerce on the planet.

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 16:16:16 GMT

Anyone remember hearing this spring how global warming models predicted that this would be one of the worst hurricane seasons in history?

National defense...

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:59:36 GMT

I've noticed that often when I want to write a journal entry, it always turns out either very long or very short. Come to think of it, for me, this is true of all writing. Being wordy is a problem for me unless I just follow my thought pattern as I write (perfect for the journal format). I think that's a good thing.

---

This morning I was watching some videos of Russian, US and Spanish navy CIWS firing on youtube. Random thing to end up at while surfing, really, but it got me thinking. Are large, expensive weapon systems obsolete, or not?

On the one hand, the advent of nuclear ICBMs really mean that, if you are using one of these other weapons, you are not fighting all-out. Also, I've decided a lot of the support for large weapon systems is based on the holy-shit-that-thing-is-powerful factor.

On the other hand, if another country attacks you with conventional weapons, you don't want your only option to be nuclear retaliation, do you? Well, maybe, but it's a question that should be considered.

I think a lot of what is bothering me here is that perception that budgets are skewed in favor of weapons which look cool or make a big boom. The thought process evolution from wanting a cool weapon, to being annoyed that you don't have anything to destoy with your cool weapon, to going in search of enemies seems all too logical. (I'm speaking generally here. I'm not talking about Iraq, if that's what you were thinking.)

So, while advanced weapons may be necessary in some sense for self-defense, the more of them you have the more dangerous having them becomes if you do not have a clear enemy. My thoughts at the moment, then, would be that perhaps a skeleton navy/air force would be a better idea ultimately. If you end up going to war, count on a combination of officially lead army militias and civilian guerilla war to repel invasion, alongside a navy and air force perhaps equal to that of a small country rather than a really massive one. A small, super elite force could probably still be quite effective in a modern conflict, and we would be able to eliminate this constant gearing up for a war that will probably never come.

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:47:33 GMT

One of the great things about living where I do is the ability to watch the Mall fireworks from my apartment window. I pity the fools who had to go bear the crowd. The fireworks were nice, though.

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:34:40 GMT

Today is the greatest day in the history of my nerd-life. Any true nerd will shiver at the news I am about to convey...

I have discovered that a full emulator exists for the Apollo Guidance Computer. Original source code for running both the LM and the CSM is included. Holy crap.

Free the Queen

Thu, 03 May 2007 17:29:05 GMT

All this buzz about the Queen visiting here is starting to get on my nerves. One news report, in an attempt to prove how stylish she is, mentioned that the Royal advance team had checked the colors of all the walls to ensure that they would not clash with the Queen's wardrobe.

How would YOU like to be nothing but a museum piece? That's essentially what the Queen is at this point. At least in the Disneyized version of 'trapped in royalty' the royalty actually has real responsibilities, unlike in the modern real life version. It's time for the British people to stop their abuse of the Royal Family, which is essentially slavery in stylish clothing. The Queen deserves to be free.

A related thought: is anyone else struck by the similarity between the Queen and Truman on The Truman Show?

Posted using LJ Talk...

Wed, 02 May 2007 21:29:20 GMT

So, apparently livejournal has its own IM service now. Funny...I really don't expect to ever see anyone use it...

The great laptop buyoff

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 04:55:16 GMT

It came down to the wire today. I was all psyched to buy a macbook. Tristan bugged me all day, and I finally went to the mall to get it. However, in a tragic turn of luck for Apple, I had to walk past the Sony store on my way to the Apple store. I looked inside, and they FINALLY had one of the UX series on display!

I really love little computers...there's just something about a full-featured real computer that fits in the palm of your hand. Ever since I worked all summer to buy the Libretto back in 1999, I've always had these romantic notions of walking around somewhere and then...BAM!...suddenly pulling a really tiny computer out of my pocket. The Libretto was great, and I did actually do that a few times. I remember at one point I went on a walking tour of DC with my cousins who had come to visit, and I brought the little computer along for no reason at all. It was great.

Ah, but it never can last. In one of the most tragic events in my history of computing, the Libretto was knocked off a table and damaged, then stolen from me by a scam-artist 'repair shop'. This left what felt like a gaping hole in me, as I had loved that little thing as much as any nerd can truly love a piece of inanimate computer equipment. When a few years ago, in an attempt to revive the old days, I bought an approximately equal Libretto on Ebay for $350, it was too late. The machine could really only run Windows 98, and anything I wanted to use it for now way outclassed the small 266mhz processor. All seemed lost.

Enter Sony to the rescue. Sony has recently decided to sell its Vaio UX series, popular in Japan, in the US as well.

Sony Vaio VGN-UX50

This is the kind of product that will always do well in Japan, but will continue to be a niche market in the US. Apparently, we prefer huge honkin' laptops with heft to dainty little computers with keyboard keys smaller than our fingers. But not me.

So, as fate would have it, Sony had its premium $2500 US model of the UX on display in the store today. Now, I've been eyeing the UX for awhile, but I had been convinced that getting a Mac was more useful. I had just never held and used the UX. As I walked by the Sony store and my hopeful glance was rewarded with a sighting of the UX, I knew the battle was over and Apple had lost. I played with the thing for a good 5 minutes (the maximum amount of time before the creepy security guards in the Sony store start giving you the evil eye). Nostalgia is unstoppable.

So, as soon as I got home, I immediately ordered the cheaper UX-50 from Japan for a cool ¥154,500 (shipping included). I'm sure it'll be the best $1300 I've ever spent. Perhaps I'll get a Mac later.

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 11:55:04 GMT

This article gave me a good hearty laugh...I needed it.

"Global oil production to peak by 2018" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18159257/

People have been yelling about "peak oil" for 50 years. Eventually they have to be right, right? I feel pretty secure that the end of the world isn't coming anytime soon.

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 02:59:34 GMT

I'm thinking maybe I really should become a Quaker. Why not? I think it's really a matter of definitions; I know the feeling they're talking about when they refer to the reception of divine guidance. I just haven't quite decided what I think it is, yet, but their explanation seems as good as any...

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:20:39 GMT

Argh, Halliburton is getting hammered today. They revised profit guidance down 13.5% for the first quarter. Thankfully all the gains I lost there are made up in other stocks. I need more, though. A little diversification is a good thing.

Corned beef on rye

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 06:58:42 GMT

Tonight, I brought home a nice big brisket and began the pickling process for making my own corned beef. As a departure from my normal daily meal of taco bell, I made pan-fried tuna and onions.

Now, I'm in a really good mood. Perhaps this is coincidence, perhaps not.

Mmm, real food is good. If only it weren't so much work...but I think that's something I'm starting to get over.

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 21:54:18 GMT

Wow. My laptop was acting really crappily, and has been for awhile. Basically whenever I tried to do anything that requires cpu use at all it would slow down a lot and the fan would turn on really high. The heat capped out at 80c (when the processor speed throttling kicks in) and every once in awhile it would cause other problems. So, I'm sitting here this afternoon and all of my programs start crashing repeatedly, and I decided it was time to try to solve this problem.

When I opened up the laptop it was immediately clear what was going on. On my laptop, the CPU is attached via a copper heatpipe to a little tiny radiator next to a blower. The radiator was completely choked up with dust. I'm surprised that the fan even turned at all.

So, I cleaned it out (Cough! Choke!) and started the computer back up. And...wow! It's like having a whole new laptop! Everything is way more responsive, and now when I go to 100% cpu use the fan barely turns on at all, and the temperature never goes above 60c.

Why didn't I do this earlier?

So...

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:11:10 GMT

Apparently there's a protest this weekend at the Pentagon. As we always say, "It's great weather for a protest. Who has a topic?" Once again I must consider one of my favorite ideas: carrying a completely ambiguous sign to a protest.

I have this completely tangential view on the subject of Iraq, and nobody at a protest would ever understand.

"I don't like the war but our troops are not evil and we should probably finish the job.*"

Doesn't make a good sign.

The whole hatred of the US/troops thing really gets to me, though, and it kinda makes me want to join the counter-protest. The troops did what they were ordered to do, the guy who gave the orders was elected President, and Congress authorized the war. Deal with it. Maybe next time you'll stand up to your representatives and force them to be more careful before doing something like this in the first place. Now that we're there, if we just run away and everything goes to hell we will have caused what is going on and all the bad things the anti-war crowd says about the US will actually be true. Since we've pledged to support the Iraqis we need to support them to the end.

*I'm currently leaning towards breaking Iraq into 3 countries as the best solution. Why can't everyone just govern themselves? The way it is currently, whoever is in power will always take advantage of whoever is not. This is true of any government, and strangely enough was the main concern of my heroes the Anti-Federalists in the 1700s. Nothing is new here. Local government is always better for the rights of the people in the long run.

Lunchtime at work

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:05:32 GMT

MYSPACE SCATTEGORIES...it's harder than it looks!

Rules: Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following...They MUST be real places, names, things...NOTHING made up! If you can't think of anything, skip it. Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question. hoohoo

Your Name: Rick

1. Famous Artist/Musician: Ray Charles

2. 4 letter word: Rice

3. Street name: Rhode Island Avenue

4. Color: Royal Blue

5. Gifts/present: Ring

6. Vehicle: Rolls-Royce

7. College or University: Rutgers

8. TV Show: Ripley's Believe It or Not, or Rachael Ray's Tasty Travels

9. Country: Russia

10. Things in a Souvenir Shop: Ripoff

11. Girl Name: Rebecca

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 17:32:23 GMT

I'm starting to think buying Intel stock was a mistake. The real question now is, will it recover well, or is this a slide it isn't going to come back from for a long time? It was on the decline anyway before the market slowdown, so it's not looking so good for me.

On the other hand, I have another play up my sleeve now. We'll see if I can make those losses back.

What to do?

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 01:23:51 GMT

Now that I'm into working, weekends seem like a huge empty gap to me. I feel like I need to fill my weekends with some kind of activity. Sitting around all day watching TV is completely unfulfilling and really sucks.

Tomorrow, I'm probably going shooting, and I want to add that to my regular activities list.

I think I may also start attending the Arlington Chess Club, as another place to play. They meet fridays.

It'll be nice if I ever do get a boat, as going out and/or working on it would be a great sunday activity.

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 02:12:13 GMT

I went to Home Depot and bought pots, seeds, and soil for my indoor herb garden today. I will be growing: oregano, chives, spearmint, sage, parsley, and basil. I plan to set up an automatic watering and lighting system to keep them happy and ready to make nice and fresh food. If this works well, I may expand the garden to more pots.

The idea is that I will get rid of a lot of the junk which is piled in the corner of my apartment to make room for this. It'll be good, I think. It'll be like a little biosphere in my apartment, but with yummy herbs.

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 01:46:16 GMT

I'm bored. Maybe I'll do more work...I do need to clean up what I've been coding lately.

Or maybe I'll just watch tv. Bah.

Rick and the boat

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 18:10:37 GMT

Some people have expressed surprise at the fact that I say I want a boat. They see it as something that came out of nowhere, and think it must merely be a passing thing, as I am prone to have. So, I think I should make an attempt to explain myself.

I still get nostalgic whenever I visit my grandmother's house. Something about it is really special to me, an important part of my childhood. When I was little I used to sit on the dock and skip stones for hours, and my dad would take us out on the little motorboat, the Boston Whaler, and motor around the lake. Sometimes, we'd stop at the dock in Burlington and get a hot dog (next to the tugboat "Miss Piggy"). Those days, I think, are a big reason why I want a boat now. After we came home from Vermont, I'd always get up at 5am when everyone else was still asleep and read my boating book, The Annapolis Book of Seamanship (mine is first edition). I'd sit there, reading about tying knots and getting a sailboat into a slip with only the wind, and picture myself out there on my own boat just going wherever.

Once, my dad took us to look at boats. At the time, I wanted a cabin cruiser of some kind, and that's what we looked at. (Now, I want a sailboat, mainly because it wouldn't require planning stops for gas.) We looked at this one boat, 35 foot or so, that was similar to this:

I, as I am prone to do sometimes, immediately fell in love with it. The upper level had a purplish red soft top over it, making it seem taller, and the swimming platform seemed perfect. I imagined myself swimming off the edge of the platform out in the middle of the lake in Vermont, or SCUBA diving (I did SCUBA when I was little). The inside was nice and big, one of those 'sleeps 6' types, and although 6 people would never actually be comfortable sleeping there, it would be great for the four of us. I picked out the bed that I wanted as mine, on the left as you were walking in, recessed back with a low ceiling. I must have spent 6 hours there, and it felt like it was mine. The rest was just a formality. We didn't look at the boat for those hours, I lived in it. By the time we left, I had already traveled around the world, seen strange and unexplored islands and visited a wide variety of small countries, all the while living in the boat. As we drove away I could not entertain the thought that I might never see my boat again.

I didn't, of course. Shortly afterward, word came that the Boston Whaler had been sold. Since we were the only ones who used it and we hadn't been to Vermont that often, it was decided that the Whaler was just taking up space. The seats were rotted through and the engine was getting old, so the family thought it was not worth keeping. We went a couple of times on the family sailboat, but it was not the same; instead of me being allowed to drive, I was barely seen as competent to secure a line. Essentially I was just a passenger. I slowly stopped getting up at 5am, and The Annapolis Book of Seamanship drifted to the corner of a dusty bookshelf.

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 07:20:23 GMT

Hallmark should really stop creating holidays. Sure, Valentine's day is nice if you're in a happy relationship, but if you're not the whole world is reminding you of that fact from New Year's until halfway through February. Now, I'm not particularly bitter (I ignore holidays usually. You don't need Hallmark to approve of when you choose to have your celebrations.), but I hear almost every single person I know complain about it pretty much every year. I think as a holiday it's too centered on an emotionally charged topic.

If someone does something nice, the other may end up wondering why they only do it once a year. If they don't, it may seem like the person doesn't care.

I think this fits well with my general hatred of social expectations.

Why can't people do nice, special things throughout the year? Why do they need a special day?

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 04:16:14 GMT

I'm having fun and getting paid for it. This is great! I can't wait to go to work (or just start it up at home whenever), now. Hopefully it will last.

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 06:02:58 GMT

Ideas:

-Go to New York and ride the subway. Get on and ride up and down on trains for a full 24 hours. Then come home.
-Spend the night in the forest near Gettysburg.
-Check out the really long sewer tunnel I used to wonder about when I was little.
-Make real custard-base ice cream.
-Name the roach in the trash room. My current working theory is "Frank", because that's my default name for creatures.

Defaults:
-Visit beach.
-Visit Gravely Point.
-Visit National Gallery.

Jobs I should have before I die:
-Corporate mogul (in planning stages)
-Programmer (in progress)
-Police officer
-Criminal defense attorney
-Medical doctor
-Meteorologist
-US Senator or Congressman, Governor, or President
-Commercial airline pilot
-Spy or intelligence analyst
-Chef
-Radio show host
-Bit-part actor

Bah.

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 03:13:33 GMT

Why is it that I only feel lonely after I see people for awhile?

Apostrophe Misuse Ravages Unsuspecting Nation

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:23:54 GMT

This just in from a story on CNN's website:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/09/news/companies/gm_robotad/?postversion=2007020915
He said the revised ad will be posted again when changes are made, but it was not clear Friday if those changes would be in time for the new spot to air on the Grammy's on Sunday, which like the Super Bowl, will be broadcast on CBS. A different ad will be shown in its place if the revised ad is not ready.

Ugh.