“In the Iraq war last year the Navy was firing Tomahawks at $1m a piece. Projectiles for the DD(X) will cost significantly less and it will be able to fire large volumes of surface fire at close range, which will bring huge economies.”… — Stealth ships steam ahead, BBC
Should I feel better that the cost for unleashing death and destruction is decreasing? Is this something that one could consider sane?
Maybe the good news is that since the value of death is decreasing, the value of life is also decreasing - and therefore, it should cost less to have children. Right?
Apart from technology, the information age has up to now badly served its idol. It has failed sufficiently to recognize specific features of information. This is shown with respect to the question whether legal rights on information can take the form of ownership. The answer is negative considering that communication by its very nature is free and constitutes a basic value, and furthermore that law is itself information and cannot systematically dispose of information flows. Analyzing the phenomenon of information, the differences of its properties as compared with those of a physical object are illustrated and assessed as fundamental; ownership would therefore be for information a Procrustean bed leading to mere arbitrariness. Intellectual property, although granting exclusive rights concerning information is not by itself opposed to these findings. But the conflict arises, if its purpose of shaping competitive advantages is spoiled to the detriment of information flows by lack of neutrality in two senses: the lack of balance between the title holder’s value generation and the reward, and of neutrality towards the various kinds of communicative relationships…
No, really. A City Is Not A Tree. Really. DryerLint pointed this one out - probably in the hope that someone else who is sane would notice it as well. So now 2 sane people know about it, maybe more.
A successful complex system should be a semi-lattice - think about it. Every object should have multiple purposes. For example, here - outside the Asylum - I write notes so that other sane people can read them. And sane people read these notes. So the site serves at least 2 purposes. Other sane people who are registered can also write notes to other sane people. And insane people can also read all of these notes, but they aren’t permitted to write anything outside the Asylum. But this is a rather simple thing.
Consider your body. No, not that part. Pay attention.
Consider blood. Blood is a very versatile fluid. It carries red blood cells (erythrocytes) around so that they can carry CO2 out of the body, and put O2 into the body, from the lungs. That’s a neat trick by itself. But it also does other things, like help regulate body temperature throughout the body. It also carries nasty by products to the kidneys which, when functioning properly, feed the bladder what shouldn’t be in there. Nutrients are passed into the bloodstream as well, and handed out to every little hungry cell that it can find (pity the last cell to get fed!). No wonder they have banks for the stuff.
Consider the ears. Not just hearing - balance as well. Nifty organ, the ear. Very small bones in it, and a little percussion instrument sitting around.
A semi-lattice is less prone to single point failures since there’s distribution, and therefore routing. Think about it.
The eAsylum is a new project based on a description on How to Build Your Own Asylum by the late Douglas Adams.
It’s the result of some thought and discussion that happened at the E-Government for All conference, as well as a few concepts:
(1) Democracy is not about voting, it’s about discussing ideas and opinions. The way that democracy is measured is through voting. This site isn’t about voting, but it’s certainly about Democracy - shaping each other’s opinions and thoughts with our own.
© 2008 eAsylum.