There are so many Plan B's floating around DC now that this is probably off the end of the alphabet but here's my take:
As the artificial debt crisis fiasco hits the deadline, Congress can't figure it's way out of a paper bag, so -
The President uses the 14th Ammendment to the Constitution to keep the US out of default and avert global crisis
Congress starts impeachment hearings because a Democratic President has acted like a Republican President, and they completely ignore any deficit legislation.
- I pray that I am wrong.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Espe's Conjecture
This is an early attempt at writing down a half baked idea that needs work. Stay tuned as I'll edit this as I get ideas. Thoughts and comment are very welcome.
--- here is my conjecture:
A sufficiently complex system has at least one singularity
These terms need some definition and at present they are still not quantatative enough but here goes
A singularity is an inconsistency or paradox or something that cannot be proved or done in the system itself.
This might be restated along the lines of open versus closed systems, implying there are no closed systems, a closed system being defined as a system with no singularities.
Examples:
Logic - this sentence is false
Cryptography - an electronic system requires some pre-existing trust. For example, Difffie-Hellman requries some pre-shared secret or it is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack.
General Realitivity - has real singularities inside black holes!
Math - singularities are called Axioms.
Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorem is another example - it might even be a more concise statement of this Conjecture but at this point I'd like to think the conjecture is more general.
You get the idea, if a system is complex enough, it has built in limits, it cannot explain or do things without something from another system or outside actor.
--- here is my conjecture:
A sufficiently complex system has at least one singularity
These terms need some definition and at present they are still not quantatative enough but here goes
A singularity is an inconsistency or paradox or something that cannot be proved or done in the system itself.
This might be restated along the lines of open versus closed systems, implying there are no closed systems, a closed system being defined as a system with no singularities.
Examples:
Logic - this sentence is false
Cryptography - an electronic system requires some pre-existing trust. For example, Difffie-Hellman requries some pre-shared secret or it is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack.
General Realitivity - has real singularities inside black holes!
Math - singularities are called Axioms.
Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorem is another example - it might even be a more concise statement of this Conjecture but at this point I'd like to think the conjecture is more general.
You get the idea, if a system is complex enough, it has built in limits, it cannot explain or do things without something from another system or outside actor.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Innovation versus healthcare
One ideal in business is the idea of an innovative company that takes risks and brings new products to the market. Some of these products would be so innovative that they'd create a new market Those new products then improve our standard of living. I think of game changing products like the PC, the iPhone, stuff like that. The United States does a great job along these lines and we should keep doing that.
What we can do to help foster new innovative companies is to provide healthcare. Critics call it socialized medicine - and it is. This is a good place to apply socialism - really. Health of the nation is a social thing, it should be shared. When the whole national healthcare debate started, I thought businesses would be glad to give the healthcare burden to the government. I believe it would be way more efficient to insure everyone than to hassle the insured and leave the uninsured to the dogs.
But back to my poin: if you have a family and a kid with a chronic health issue and come up with a billion dollar idea, you might just forget the idea and stay at your job because it has the healthcare benefits your kid needs. If your healthcare was not tied to your job, you'd go out and innovate. We want business to take risk but we don't want to risk our families to do it - do we?
Why does it make sense to link medical care with whether you have a job or not? All the other grown up countries separate the two. The United States is the most innovative place but we are hobbling ourselves with limits like this. Think how much better we could be if business risk didn't involve family health risk.
What we can do to help foster new innovative companies is to provide healthcare. Critics call it socialized medicine - and it is. This is a good place to apply socialism - really. Health of the nation is a social thing, it should be shared. When the whole national healthcare debate started, I thought businesses would be glad to give the healthcare burden to the government. I believe it would be way more efficient to insure everyone than to hassle the insured and leave the uninsured to the dogs.
But back to my poin: if you have a family and a kid with a chronic health issue and come up with a billion dollar idea, you might just forget the idea and stay at your job because it has the healthcare benefits your kid needs. If your healthcare was not tied to your job, you'd go out and innovate. We want business to take risk but we don't want to risk our families to do it - do we?
Why does it make sense to link medical care with whether you have a job or not? All the other grown up countries separate the two. The United States is the most innovative place but we are hobbling ourselves with limits like this. Think how much better we could be if business risk didn't involve family health risk.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
It's your money
Yeah that was great, wasn't it? Lowering taxes and getting to keep all that money is wonderful, huh?
No? Where'd it all go? Funny how all your money that you saved isn't there - OK it isn't funny.
The money that you didn't give to the government seems to have gone to really rich folks. We didn't even notice we were giveint it to them.
But it cut down on waste and big government - except now we have to pay for visiting the parks and we have to pay for school things our kids used to get. And pay little taxes here and there and there and there and there
By being fooled into reducing taxes so we could keep 'our money' we have cheaped our way into this mess while rich folks have actually gotten to keep their money (and apparently our money too).
The way I see it, if we all worry about the other person, we will all be better off. If we're all out for ourselves, some of us will do very very well but most of us won't.Thing is, the well to do would still be well to do, heck, if everyone was better off, they'd be even weller-to-do.
No? Where'd it all go? Funny how all your money that you saved isn't there - OK it isn't funny.
The money that you didn't give to the government seems to have gone to really rich folks. We didn't even notice we were giveint it to them.
But it cut down on waste and big government - except now we have to pay for visiting the parks and we have to pay for school things our kids used to get. And pay little taxes here and there and there and there and there
By being fooled into reducing taxes so we could keep 'our money' we have cheaped our way into this mess while rich folks have actually gotten to keep their money (and apparently our money too).
The way I see it, if we all worry about the other person, we will all be better off. If we're all out for ourselves, some of us will do very very well but most of us won't.Thing is, the well to do would still be well to do, heck, if everyone was better off, they'd be even weller-to-do.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Still think you're a person?
I don't know why you do. Courts keep rubbing your nose in it and you should just get over it.
You seem to think your personal information is somehow yours - courts would differ since they have ruled data miners have rights to it - maybe more rights than you have to it.
Think politicians care about your opinion? Not unless you can put up those big corporate donations that corporations do(sorry, they're people too - better people than you).
You seem to think your personal information is somehow yours - courts would differ since they have ruled data miners have rights to it - maybe more rights than you have to it.
Think politicians care about your opinion? Not unless you can put up those big corporate donations that corporations do(sorry, they're people too - better people than you).
Friday, March 11, 2011
Patience
Maybe its because I'm older now that I have more patience with almost everything. I've seen enough to know that sometimes it just takes a bit of waiting on something. Like letting bread rise. You can't rush it.
It is also one of the best things about democracy and maybe the least understood. I have thought for some time that one of the greatest things about democracy is succession. All other forms of government have a problem with succession. Sure kings and queens have succession but eventually that falls apart, strong men can't live forever and their heirs can't maintain the strong rule forever.
Once I realized this critical difference in the world's governments, it seemed to me that democracy was inevitable. You just need patience. Sure it isn't perfect and the road is long and painful but patience will pay off. What is the alternative?
Well we tried the alternative in Iraq. Depose an evil strong man and democracy will flower. Yeah right.
Imagine if we had patience. Eight years after Iraq, something happened in Tunisia. People just got sick of their leader and decided to try democracy. Amazingly the process was reasonably peaceful, it might even work. We won't know for quite a while. Patience.
Then this idea spread to Egypt where, again, it was reasonably peaceful and, again, we will have to be patient.
Imagine if we had waited, had not invaded Iraq, What do you suppose would have happened then? If this movement had arrived at an Iraq that was still dominated by a strongman, I can't think it would have been peaceful. There was too much tension I expect that Iraq would have been more like what is happening in Libya - ugly.
Speaking of Libya, where is the patience there? There is pressure to establish a no-fly zone there but it turns out that Step One is an act of war - destroy Libya's air defenses. Yet we do feel we must do something because Libyans are dying.
I did say being patient was not easy.
It is also one of the best things about democracy and maybe the least understood. I have thought for some time that one of the greatest things about democracy is succession. All other forms of government have a problem with succession. Sure kings and queens have succession but eventually that falls apart, strong men can't live forever and their heirs can't maintain the strong rule forever.
Once I realized this critical difference in the world's governments, it seemed to me that democracy was inevitable. You just need patience. Sure it isn't perfect and the road is long and painful but patience will pay off. What is the alternative?
Well we tried the alternative in Iraq. Depose an evil strong man and democracy will flower. Yeah right.
Imagine if we had patience. Eight years after Iraq, something happened in Tunisia. People just got sick of their leader and decided to try democracy. Amazingly the process was reasonably peaceful, it might even work. We won't know for quite a while. Patience.
Then this idea spread to Egypt where, again, it was reasonably peaceful and, again, we will have to be patient.
Imagine if we had waited, had not invaded Iraq, What do you suppose would have happened then? If this movement had arrived at an Iraq that was still dominated by a strongman, I can't think it would have been peaceful. There was too much tension I expect that Iraq would have been more like what is happening in Libya - ugly.
Speaking of Libya, where is the patience there? There is pressure to establish a no-fly zone there but it turns out that Step One is an act of war - destroy Libya's air defenses. Yet we do feel we must do something because Libyans are dying.
I did say being patient was not easy.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Its the stupid economy
You couldn't see this coming?
Companies ship jobs overseas for cheaper labor
Here in the US people lose good paying jobs
Desperate, they start taking lower paying jobs
But they keep getting ecouraged to Buy Buy Buy
They charge things
They pull money out of their homes, often by shady or even fradulent mortgages
Somebody points out that the king has no clothes, that is, many mortgages are bad
Housing prices fall
A recession sweeps the planet
Now the companies want consumers to spend money to improve the economy and create jobs
Oh, crap, we've spent all our money, borrowed all we could, maxed our credit
If only we had good paying jobs ...
Wasn't it Henry Ford that raised his workers' wages so they could buy his cars?
Companies ship jobs overseas for cheaper labor
Here in the US people lose good paying jobs
Desperate, they start taking lower paying jobs
But they keep getting ecouraged to Buy Buy Buy
They charge things
They pull money out of their homes, often by shady or even fradulent mortgages
Somebody points out that the king has no clothes, that is, many mortgages are bad
Housing prices fall
A recession sweeps the planet
Now the companies want consumers to spend money to improve the economy and create jobs
Oh, crap, we've spent all our money, borrowed all we could, maxed our credit
If only we had good paying jobs ...
Wasn't it Henry Ford that raised his workers' wages so they could buy his cars?
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