Randomlets
Well, not actually random. At least in the sense that they are drawn from the article from the RSS feeds that I subscribe to. So while the selection may be at least pseudo-stochastic in the macro, there is probably a considerable aspect of predictable determinacy at the micro.
According to the BBC [Link] spending on the internet is up 0.19 from last year. That contrasts with numbers of less than 0.04 overall that I have seen in sources I can’t find right now – so we have to accept my inaccurate memory. Not that my memory is necessarily more inaccurate than the measurement or the reportage.
This does confirm my experience. I bought a lot more holiday "stuff" over the net this year than last, The reasons for this are many: it is easier to make price comparisons although these comparisons are inherently quite flawed since the search sites never manage to include the handling and shipping charges, but they do provide a start that can be refined with a bit of browsing. One also does not have to deal directly with crowds, nor with surly as well as inept "service" personnel. (This does point up the rather paradoxical state of retail sales that clerks have to be inept to keep their jobs; if they are competent they have to be paid more and thus they damage the ROI. This is particularly evident at upper end big box stores like Circuit City, but not at low end like MalWart where ineptness is competence, which yields new insight into the Orwellian nature of MalWart.) Thus the most difficult things to deal with are late deliveries and merchants who take the charge and fail to deliver. Still, the news is a bit disconcerting as it promises to further increase the population of vacant store fronts. It also adds to our concern over the coming transportation crisis.
There is some wrangling over whether the RIAA is now taking on the folks who rip their audio CDs. [Link] Heretofore they have concentrated on those folks who shared files, and there is both some sense to that as well as some practicality. The number of sharing sites is small enough that a surveillance effort is affordable; how one goes and inspects every PC for files is another matter. Also, there is the question of whether the courts will not interpret this as fair use, especially if there is no evidence of sharing. One has to wonder which is the bigger putz, the RIAA with their heavy handed Gestapo tactics or the Yankee congress who seem single minded about revising the copyright to the advantage of a few, artificial citizens.
Not that I am going to change my ways here. My taste in music is so dated that not only cannot the songs be found on sharing sites, no one I know wants them. Hence I am without temptation as well as inclination. But there is something natural about aerobic exercise to bagpipe music.
I also note mention of the old, perhaps now again current, theories about multiple universes. [Link] Sadly, the reportage seems to always neglect to connect all this with Popper and his quantum mechanics interpretation, which so far as I can see in untestable and hence unfalsifiable, but happily is compatible with the interaction interpretation, at least sort of. (And yes, there were at least two double entendres in that sentence for those of you who haven’t studied your QM and Popper lately.) In fact that piece with the interaction picture or interpretation is needed to address the primary weakness of the Popperian or multiuniverse theories. Namely, if universes branch off as the outcomes of stochastic events, how "big: does the event have to be for a branching to occur. This is sort of the practical QM equivalent of the old saw about the wood chuck chucking wood.
Since its the day before a holy day, we can have pun day early, maybe twice, this week.
