Notices by Doc Edward Morbius ⭕ (dredmorbius@mastodon.cloud), page 4

The Royal Persian Road was built between 550 and 486 BCE, by Cyrus II and Darius I, and was about 1500 miles long

It ran between Susa, Persia, and Saedes on the Aegean coast of modern Turkey. Its path likely followed an earlier track, dating to 3500 BCE.

Covering the entire route took 90 days, though royal post riders could travel it in 20, along a fully guarded route and post-stations a day's ride apart.

-- David Christian's "Big History", relying on Herodotus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Road

@aral You can't venture-capital your way out of a problem you venture-capitalled your way into in the first place.

An administrative announcement.
Motherfuckers.

@craigmaloney Packaging systems, Debian's APT in particular, are hated by SW devs for much the same reason they're valued by sysadmins: they front-load integration, dependency resolution, upgrade dynamics, etc. More up-front work, far less hassle down the road, for far more people.

The can is kicked /up/ the stack.

I has Tildes invites

For those interested.

https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes

Q: Isn't there something bigger than us? Something else?

A: Yes. Elephants.

Q: No, really.

A: Well, grain barges.

Dear Hivemind: How were tables, formulae, charts, and figures (line, not shaded art) laid out / ttypeset in physical presses?

Say, 1850 - 1950, roughly?

#printing
#typography

"This particular business model, surveillance and targeted advertising, is not compatible with a healthy democracy"

-- Zeynep Tufekci

That's Facebook, Google, Twitter, Reddit, AdTech, all of Silicon Valley, VC, and most of infotech.

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/12/601951556/can-social-media-have-a-structure-that-does-more-good-than-harm

#SurveillanceCapitalism
#privacy
#propaganda
#infotech
#hygienefactors

Is the phrase "I need to back up my car" ambiguous yet?

Stephen Hawking dies aged 76

"...His children, Lucy, Robert and Tim, said: "We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today...."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43396008

"Don't be evil".

Google is Quietly Providing AI Technology for Drone Strike Targeting Project

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/06/google-is-quietly-providing-ai-technology-for-drone-strike-targeting-project/

#google
#dronewarfare
#killing

I'm looking for bike panniers, specifically FRONT bags or other attachments for shopping.

These seem to be ... hard to come by. Any suggestions?

#bicycling #bikecommuting #bikeshopping #urbanbike

@ilpianista One more point about scale: Google, and Facebook, and governments, and mafia organisations, are /huge/.

Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014, for $19 billion /in cash/.

The typical U.S. household cannot raise $400 on short term. Facebook a California company, has the purchasing power of 40 million typical households -- the population of the entire state.

These are Large Entities. Very Large Entities.

/37

John Stuart Mill, on Inequality, Opportunity, and Poverty

tash this one away for the next time you hear, "Well, I raised myself up by my bootstraps, why can't (you|some third part(y|ies))?"...

https://redd.it/7onzpg
#dreddit

@djsundog If you've ever read the translated lyrics, that song turns out to be surprisingly subversive. Almost redeems it.

Sci-Hub has 64.5 million papers and growing.

@woozle @sydneyfalk Many social, political, and business systems developments of the past ... oh, say, 500 years, and in cases significantly longer, have been engineering around this.

Either finding ways to /extend/ trust, to /work around/ it, to /mitigate/ it, or to insulate from risks.

@Angle @natecull @wrenpile ***MIND THAT YOU NEED BOTH OF THESE.*** If you have a UBI without asset taxes, the income simply gets eaten up in economic rent extraction.

If you have asset taxes without a UBI, you *still* have the problem of wages driven down to subsistence levels.

***THESE ARE NOT SEPARABLE POLICIES. THEY MUST BE PAIRED.***

And /that/ is part of the wage & rents classical economics discussion that's been almost entirely forgotten.

It's certainly not taught. Or wasn't me.

11/

@Angle @natecull @wrenpile And a conspicuous lack of foresight.

How do you fix this?

One part is to tax wealth directly: *tax assets to capture the socially-derived value.* Put a high carrying-cost on them.

The Tobin transaction tax, the ancient Chinese practice of requiring money to be regularly stamped (for a charge), *putting a carrying cost on cash*, estate taxes: these all accomplish much the same thing.

Another is to ensure a basic income. Living wages, universal income.

10/

@Angle @natecull @wrenpile Upshot: banks needed nominal returns. Real estate was providing nominal returns. /Homeowners/ were happy with this, because, hey, *we're asset holders, our assets are inflating, FREE MONEY!!*. Sucks to be their kids though.

Banks, real estate holders, property owners, and a whole mess of others, recognised that /any little thing/ they could do to bump up prices was a net good for them. So they did.

No Vast Conspiracy Needed. Just plain old self-interest.

9/