Software and Plenty

The tools of software makers are freely available. It is as if a foundry was abandoned and left running with a supply of steel, awaiting the makers of anvils, hammers, I-beams, and ships. Free compilers are the tool-makers' tools.

And while other trades must be learned in college, programming is taught in high school -- and earlier! What's more, this training is subsidized!

And while other trades specialize and categorize, the lowliest hacker can rise to be the Next Bill Gates - or at least the next Linus Torvalds.

Software is inherently non-unique. Any uniqueness is simulated, as in Digital Rights Management. Even the decoding scheme for DVD encoding is available as a prime number.

This is unique in the history of mankind. Never before has there been a set of tools and raw material so plentiful, and as free.

And never again.

The parasites will create chips that cannot use free compilers. The parasites will create internet connections that require proprietary software. The parasites will take away the "free" high-school C++ courses.

The trade will die. In America.

As with the physical tradesmen, programmers will see their cost-of-living increase, so that they must work longer hours for the same pay. Competition with foreign workers will become fierce, and lower pay must become acceptable... or the programmers will starve.

This will take place over the next ten years, and at the end of it, Americans will still be flipping burgers on artificially inflated minimum wages, but they won't be sitting in front of keyboards, esteemed for their l33t skillz and paid the wages of a skilled tradesman.

Nothing is Bad Stuff

The other day, someone asked The Internet Oracle an interesting question.

Oh Oracle Most Wise, who fathoms the true meaning of a lightyear,
What makes outer space so dangerous?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

Nothing.

Lots and lots of it. Going on darn near forever
in all directions. Oh sure, there's some dust
here, a planet full of sentient creatures there,
and a perfectly matched pair of G Class stars way,
way over there, but mostly it's nothing. And nothing
is dangerous. Think about a gun. See that empty
hole at the end of the barrel, the place where
nothing is? That is by far the MOST DANGEROUS part to
place upside your temple. Or your girlfriend, think
of her. If you ask her anything -- what's up or
what she's mad about or what it is she's thinking
of and she says, "Nothing" -- Dude, you are in BIG
TROUBLE.

Nothing is Bad Stuff.

That's why they put it up there in outer space, out
of the way, out of reach.

You owe the Oracle something.

You see, Nothing is the opposite of Something. Nothing is Bad Stuff, whether it's a logical nothing, such as not telling the truth, or a physical something, such as not stopping bad things from happening, or an emotional nothing, such as not having a better purpose beyond having people see your good work toward a good purpose.

Nothing doesn't exist (duh) until we make it partially exist. Then it seeks toward being nothing again until it is. Throw a ball up in the air. Nothing holds it up (no strength, no object, no anything holds it up), so it comes back down. But on its way down, it might hit something fragile and break it.

This post was more coherent in my mind. I have less ability to articulate it right now, so I should go to bed.