A tourist needs his watch repaired. Its Sunon-native: google to the rescue.

A tourist needs his watch repaired. Its Sunday, and he finds a tiny shop that is open, with a beautiful millenium clock on display in the window…nday, and he finds a tiny shop that is open, with a beautiful millenium clock on display in the window…
—-

I couldn’t find this joke on Google at all. Could you tell the rest of it?

None of which were there.

I thought to myself, very loudly, a word which should not be repeated on a family blog. Arguments over the right way to distribute different kinds of content so the creators get their proper compensation seem a little beside the point when the only way you can get an SF novel onto the MIT bookstore shelves is to write a Star Wars, Star Trek or Halo tie-in.

“We all get richer as automation increases, not poorer.”

As I noted in #99: this whole thread about copyrights and the ‘vanishing’ costs of digital reproduction, is evidence that this capitalist mantra is not “guaranteed”, and may turn out to be a harbinger of what will happen with most manufacturing, though not VERY soon.

This turns out not to be a timeless economic law. You might want to start reading Krugman in the NY Times.

Speaking of technology, prototypes of the Espresso Book Machine are operating at selected sites. As the name kind of implies the EBM will print a paperback book for you from a PDF file while you enjoy a hot beverage.

I’m wondering how Greg Egan feels about this development. On the one hand it allows him to keep his books “in print” continuously without risk while insuring he gets his cut from the sales. On the other hand it puts him in meaningful competition with every science fiction writer since Verne.

The EBM provides some context for my idea of unused intellectual property rights lapsing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso_Book_Machine

What irritates me is that he makes no distinction. As if poetic meditation were the essence of fundamental physics.

The universe is a physical system that supports universal computation. What else do you demand of something for it to be a computer?

The whole problem, of course, is that there isn’t really anything to demand. But the rough idea is to posit that we are all trapped in a simulation. Or to use an older phrase, that life is but a dream.

That would explain why Mathematica is so slow: it’s outsourcing all its computations to another universe.

Ha! Yes, that would explain it. It’s not really true — but they may well be planning something very similar to that.

The universe may not be a computer but could probably be made to be.

The universe is a physical system that supports universal computation. What else do you demand of something for it to be a computer? We don’t have the means to program the whole thing any way we like, but then I don’t get to program my entire Mac either (or not without voiding the warranty), but it’s still a computer.

Then again, maybe the universe doesn’t support universal computation. That would explain why Mathematica is so slow: it’s outsourcing all its computations to another universe.

We all get richer as automation increases, not poorer

Your assumption that all it takes a person move to a new technology is “short term hardship”, is unrealistic.

Not all technologies create new jobs, or at least not as many jobs as the old ones. Otherwise automation wouldn’t be worthwile. Many people have to start over, in a different not-yet-automated field.

Even when new jobs are created, they usually involve not just a new way of doing things but a more sofisticated way.

Since changes are fast paced, experience has less value.
Eventually older workers, and uneducated workers are too expensive to retrain, and might never catch up - not a “short term hardship” at all.

And if the automarion doesn’t mean more sofisticted jobs, it at least means the employers depend less on the workers skill (or cooperation).
All you really need is to buy a good product and find the cheapest way to operate it.
Take for example the way your cell phone is manufactured - one needs a handfull of well paid designers, engeneers, and managers and houndreds of underpaid uneducated, easily replacable Thai children.

All automation (near) guarantees is that the sum of everybody’s production will increase…