This is similar to an intuition I've had about what it means to program "algorithmically". We often draw a distinction between "algorithms" and "business logic", but fundamentally they are the same thing. They are both plans of the steps necessary to accomplish a goal. The only difference, in my mind, is the style in which the program is written. To program "algorithmically" means to take steps to make undesirable program states impossible to represent.
- In the case of search or sort algorithms, where the primary concern is the speed of computation, undesirable states would be performing unnecessary or duplicate computations.
- In the case of encryption algorithms, undesirable states would be those that leak encrypted data.
- In the case of an order shipping and fulfillment system, an undesirable state would be marking an order as fulfilled when not all of the items have been delivered.
The more care that is taken to prevent undesirable states, the more the program takes on an algorithmic style. And the only way you can be sure that those undesirable states are impossible is to think in terms of proofs and invariants.
US Marshalls IIRC is also the hardest to get into. If I recall they have like one day a year they accept applications and they all (only certain # accepted) get filled within seconds. (I'm probably embellishing but not by much).
> Do you want people operating sewing machines or (say) welders?
Adequate clothing is actually a very important in war. Frostbite, sunburn, heat exhaustion, cuts and scrapes (which can lead to infection), trench foot, etc. are all conditions that can be mitigated through clothing.
> Adequate clothing is actually a very important in war. Frostbite, sunburn, heat exhaustion, cuts and scrapes (which can lead to infection), trench foot, etc. are all conditions that can be mitigated through clothing.
Which is why all US military clothing is mandated to be domestically produced (Berry Amendment).
But how much industrial capacity do you want to take up making clothing? Or do you want to concentrate your finite workforce in perhaps being able to produce (say) artillery shells or cruise missiles?
Which is another ironic/sad part of Trump and Ukraine: a large portion of the US money 'sent' to UA actually went to the American military industrial complex. Helping UA was actually helping the US in being better prepared from a military supply chain POV.
Similarly, by alienating NATO allies, they're now less inclined to purchase US military gear, and so there will be lower economies of scale for fighters and missiles and such.
The icebreaker agreement (ICE Pact) would have caused investment in US shipyards:
> Which is why all US military clothing is mandated to be domestically produced (Berry Amendment).
Cool.
> But how much industrial capacity do you want to take up making clothing?
I actually want the market to decide that. But that is fundamentally what we do not have. It has been more or less the result of conscious trade policy (by all governments involved) to incentivize production in other countries.
> I actually want the market to decide that. But that is fundamentally what we do not have. It has been more or less the result of conscious trade policy (by all governments involved) to incentivize production in other countries.
But that is The Market™ deciding that.
The American (and other) consumer wants cheap(er) stuff. The way to get that, while also allowing companies to have a profit margin, is to lower input costs—one of which is labour. So the consideration of desired low retail prices and margins have The Market deciding to move production to lower-wage areas.
And "lower" wage is relative: it is lower than what Americans/whomever would perhaps be willing to work for, but the wages may be pretty good for the location where the work is being done.
If you personally are willing to pay more for (perceived?) "quality" of 'Made in the USA' (or wherever), then there may be market for products in that market segment. But not everyone may want, or have the resources, to partake in that higher-price segment. Why should they have to pay more? One can buy a DeWalt or Ryobi or Harbor Freight drill: why should be forced to by DeWalt prices if all they need/want is HF?
Minimum wage is possibly the worst, most ham-fisted way of driving productivity gains. Minimum wage and similar regulations are why so many jobs have shifted overseas in the first place. The "productivity gains" have almost entirely consisted in improved logistics for mobilizing cheaper foreign labor, not actually making domestic workers any more productive.
One major reason why it is cheaper to make these clothes overseas is because we have such a stringent regulatory regime for worker and environmental protections, and using foreign manufacturers is essentially a loophole through those regulations. Whether those regulations are useful or not is entirely beside the point: if they are good, then moving manufacturing over to lower regulation countries is bad and we should impose tariffs on all of those goods. If those regulations are bad, then we should just repeal them and let domestic manufacturers compete on an even playing field.
1. The regulatory burden on manufacturing is much higher here than foreign countries
2. Those foreign countries have a deliberate policy of maintaining a trade surplus in order to improve their own industrial capacity at the expense of our own
I would absolutely expect that even in a more level trade environment there would still be some foreign manufacturing of clothes. But what we are seeing is not the happy accident of the free market, but the result of very deliberate government policy.
> but replacing the fundamental principles of existing licenses with new simple principles that slice the world into acceptable and unacceptable behavior in a better fashion.
Feel free to come up with a different set of principles, but don't call it FOSS.
What frustrates me about this current FOSS discourse is that the are a bunch of people who want to change FOSS principles without (seemingly) understanding what those original principles are or why they were chosen. These critics live in a world in which FOSS has been uproariously successful but don't appear to appreciate what was necessary for it to be successful in the first place.
You cannot have soft enforcement of ethical norms without hard entry requirements. That soft enforcement can only be achieved in the context of high trust social groups, which exist in the context of relatively insular cultures.
That's the thing, while there is value in investing in open source (for corporations and individuals) that value is often speculative and hard to quantify. When times are tough, people tend to focus on short-term, concrete benefits.
> "Kind" is at best a context-dependent virtue. There are plenty of situations where being critical or divisive is the right thing.
Obviously.
Is hating Nickelback one of those situations?
> And even when the harshness doesn't come from the best place, we still need it to some extent or we become fragile and blind to our own flaws.
That's a fairly nuance-less view of kindness. Criticism, in the right context, is kind--it's not kindness to let problems stagnate when they can be fixed. For example, that is why I decided to criticize the author of this blog post.
But hating Nickelback, especially when it's just dogpiling onto a frankly boring meme, isn't trying to fix any flaw or problem. It's just being a dick in a way that it's popular to be a dick, because you can't be arsed to think for yourself about your own actions.
Look, if you didn't find it funny, you're right. But those people who found it funny were also right. Humor is a matter of taste.
> It's just being a dick in a way that it's popular to be a dick, because you can't be arsed to think for yourself about your own actions.
Maybe, or maybe people think it's funny and based on relevant criticism of the band's musical range and the music industry overall.
> Criticism, in the right context, is kind--it's not kindness to let problems stagnate when they can be fixed.
There's no use in this conversation if you are just going to equivocate between "kind" and "good". Kindness, as I understand it, usually implies some sort of consideration for the feelings of other people, which is manifestly not always the right thing.
And there is a commandment not to covet your neighbor's slaves, so maybe the 10 commandments aren't a great example of morality.
> Look, if you didn't find it funny, you're right. But those people who found it funny were also right. Humor is a matter of taste.
Eh, I can see how it's a little funny. I just don't really support humor at other people's expense.
> > Criticism, in the right context, is kind--it's not kindness to let problems stagnate when they can be fixed.
> There's no use in this conversation if you are just going to equivocate between "kind" and "good". Kindness, as I understand it, usually implies some sort of consideration for the feelings of other people, which is manifestly not always the right thing.
I'm not equivocating between "kind" and "good".
Going with your definition of kind: sometimes, when you consider the feelings of others, you realize that them feeling bad in the short term because you tell them a hard-to-hear criticism, allows them to fix a problem and feel better in the long term.
- In the case of search or sort algorithms, where the primary concern is the speed of computation, undesirable states would be performing unnecessary or duplicate computations.
- In the case of encryption algorithms, undesirable states would be those that leak encrypted data.
- In the case of an order shipping and fulfillment system, an undesirable state would be marking an order as fulfilled when not all of the items have been delivered.
The more care that is taken to prevent undesirable states, the more the program takes on an algorithmic style. And the only way you can be sure that those undesirable states are impossible is to think in terms of proofs and invariants.