the unBlog

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Sorry about the large files. Sometime soon I’ll create some reduced-size versions.

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I had intended to post semi-regularly while in China but the internet connection there just wasn’t good enough. Now that I’m back I’ll post some pictures, movies, and random bits of gibberish.

It was the second day of training for me. Our group trained with the Women’s Beijing Wushu A-Team today. Now I’m in pain, every muscle in my legs hurts from repeated jumping-kicks. I’d write more but three hours from now we train again and I need to get some rest!

There are a few pictures of the Forbidden City on zanethomas.com/nGallery. The internet connection is slow so I don’t know how many pictures I’ll manage each day.

<<== Click It

Centralization I generally avoid hanging reasoning on the particular definitions of words. Words should be the slaves of ideas and not the other way around. But as a starting point for discussion, some sort of common understanding helps. To that end Google’s ‘define:’ search capability can be very nice, as demonstrated in the link above.
In my experience of current culture the words ‘centralization’ and ‘centralized planning’ are overwhelmingly perceived as negative. And I think a pretty solid body of science and reason demonstrates, as a generality, that the perception is accurate. In the terms of evolutionary science life is a complex problem and evolution is a process of finding “good enough” solutions to that problem. Different species have evolved different solutions, and some solutions are still good enough.

Life is the result of the non random replication of randomly varying replicators If you don’t know what that sentence means read the essay by Jonny - he’s a longtime friend of mine who has several talents, which his talent for writing lets him share. I’ll proceed as if you’ve just read what Jonny wrote…

What that has to do with centralization is this: Centrallly controlled environments reduce the randomness required by evolution and so solutions to complex problems may not evolve. Moreover, if you include the concept of coevolution - the mutual dependence of the evolution of both the solution and problems, as evidenced by the complexity of life - there is good reason to suppose that a too-controlled environment will not only reduce the propagation of solutions but it will also fail to lead to a diversity of problems to solve. The world would not be interesting with only roses and bees - although it could be very efficient.

MonopolyIt appears to me that there are two major issues with monopolies: a lack of experimentation, and the ability of the monopoly holder to exploit its position through money and the exercise of power. That’s true for governments and businesses alike.
Monopoly holders resist experimentation outside of the boundaries within which their monopolies are maintained. And monopoly holders often use their position to the disadvantage of others. Stalinist Russia is an example of a brutal and obviously destructive monopoly. And Microsoft, of course, is an example of a more benign sort of dictatorship; but it’s a dictatorship none-the-less, and one that has an impact on those of us who work in computer technology.
It is often argued that while Microsoft is a large corporation it has a vibrant internal environment within which there is substantial experimentation, selection, and hence evolution. I used to make that argument myself. There was fierce competition inside the Soviet System too, although those who lost sometimes suffered a fate worse than being transfered to janitorial services. Like the Soviet System, Microsoft exists to perpetuate itself, its party members (and the interests of its share-holders), regardless of the long term interests of the rest of us.
The operating system must become a vibrant environment within which new and creative problems and solutions can coevolve.

It will happen, sooner or later.

That’s life.

and trips into the unKnown…