> It seems like mechanics really don't like digging into the electrical part of the car.
this is like saying that computer programmers don't like digging into the proprietary and binary blobs from other vendors.
I am trying to say it's not fair to blame mechanics because even if they want to dig into the electronics, the car manufacturers take active measures to prevent 'random mechanics' from digging around.
I suppose there are many rational and reasonable way to justify why this is so; probably all having some form of "because safety" and "because IP of vendors".
it's not that we didn't develop culture, it's just that the scientific/academic CANNOT accept nothing which is not written down (or which exist as material remnants), and writing is barely over 10 or 12 thousand years old.
meaning that the preceding period of cultural development doesn't exist for them by the 'choice' of relying solely on material artifacts as admissible evidence; which unwritten (oral only) transmission does not have.
I think it has little to do with "science"; it is the westerners who have held science hostage which has led to all kinds of idiocy.
They will accept Egyptians as "civilized" because they can then go on to claim that the ancient Egyptians who lived 2500 years ago, who were more close to Europeans, totally built the pyramids even though nothing suggests that they had the means to do so... and the answer to that obviously is "slavery"... because that is how Europeans would do it and therefore that is how it was done.
And nothing is unknown or open to explanation because western "experts" of course know everything.
I don't think there is much hope for knowing more of human past until the western empire collapses and more intelligent civilizations take over.
Oh please, lots of great cultural creations had a profit motive. You think "Blade Runner" was made without any desire for profit? Or "2001: A Space Odyssey"? Or Peter Jackson's LotR movies? Those were enormously profitable.
And Rings of Power was not that bad. It's not as great as the LotR movies, sure, but it's better than the Hobbit movies. (But not as good as some of the Hobbit fan edits.) And it's a LOT better than the new Netflix show "The Ark". What a turd, and a huge disappointment coming from some of the people behind Stargate.
Minor correction: "The Ark" is a SyFy/Peacock show, not Netflix. My apologies to Netflix for naming them as having made what's probably the worst sci-fi show ever.
Interestingly, I found the show that "The Ark" is loosely based on, a 70s show called "The Starlost". It's available on YouTube for free. Anyway, it was widely panned too, even named on someone's "worst sci-fi shows of all time" list. I've only seen one episode but it's already notably better than "The Ark" despite being 50 years old now (and not because "The Starlost" is great either).
the roman catholics burned it so to make their mythical "jesus" figure stick.
with the info destroyed in that fire we became 'disconnected' from the real historical jesus; thereby enabling the rise of the mythical figure tweaked to allow easier control of the masses. "what would jesus do?"
This is what I was thinking reading the part of the discussion here about IA being too big or important to fail.. Important to who, to which type of society and social order.. In a post truth antagonistic tribal world, archives are not important to society
> Controlled digital lending had a chance of getting off the ground.
sure, it may have worked, but fuck me if that's what we get. controlled digital lending means we throw away[1] the great advantage brought by digital technology.
controlled digital lending is a very stupid thing to do. I saw megaupload. it showed us all that we can all share it all; we just don't seem to want to, or rather, the American government pursued them into extinction.
[1] looking at this even more closely, it's not that this 'digital advantage' is wasted, it is merely captured by authoritative powers who only understand markets, trade, and exclusive properties (exclusive due to being physical/material in nature unlike digital assets). e.g. Microsoft's billionaire business is made from capturing this digital boon as I called it.
Might be interesting to start a large "online library" that does physical books by mail. Similar to Netflix original dvd model, but for books. An annual membership fee of like $20/yr to help maintain storage infrastructure. Then ship those books to/from people in reusable boxes for bigger/unwieldy books or padded envelopes if that's sufficient for less expensive paperback.
Small per-lend fee to cover the shipping cost, with a return window or followup fee per N days... days determined based on the size/pages in the book/volume.
With efforts to work with various local libraries to handle some of the distribution closer to the people.
Everything old is new again. That's literally how for-profit subscription libraries (which often used to also ship books to people too far away to visit the physical library) used to work in the 18th and 19th century prior to widespread public libraries. The existence of these libraries even influenced the style of novels at the time. Because each volume was treated as a separate rental, novels became longer and longer so that they could be split across multiple volumes (most typically 3).
I don't see how the shipping costs could ever be low enough for that to make sense. Even after my organization's massive UPS discounts, shipping a paperback one state over still costs $4.30. Would you rather spend five bucks to rent a used book or fifteen to buy a new one?
> Might be interesting to start a large "online library" that does physical books by mail.
but this changes everything. My whole point (which you seem to have ignored) is that when dealing with physical goods, then the systems (traditions, institutions) already in place work fine.
But why would I do that when I can give the PDF version to everybody due to ZERO distribution costs? (not marginal costs, even less. zero costs once the PDFs are made).
But this is by 'design', I have very unreasonable suspicions that indeed, the whole VC 'world of entrepreneurs' is just the way the USA government does R & D on an industrial-corporate scale. The 'brilliance' behind this way of doing R&D is that they only pick up the winners after they won, so they don't "waste" money on R&D death ends nor moonshots.
on the other hand, this is a good way to 'explode' for cheap the technological applications of already developed scientific innovations. meaning none of those VC-backed startups are doing innovative research, but in fact are devleoping commercial applications for corporate overlords who having seen who won, step in to buy them out.
even music industry is shifting to that model, they are now only signing bands/artists/influencers who already build their audience.
It's far superior to the EU model where politicians are tasked with creating requirements for ,,the next innovations'' and creating tenders, businesses popping up / recycled to win those tenders, do the minimum to satisfy the criterion that nobody really cares about, and try to siphon out as much money as possible using trusted subcontractors, meanwhile paying a huge part of the money for the privilage of winning the tender.
At least that's what's going on in Hungary, the most corrupt government in EU, I hope other parts are a bit better.
this is like saying that computer programmers don't like digging into the proprietary and binary blobs from other vendors.
I am trying to say it's not fair to blame mechanics because even if they want to dig into the electronics, the car manufacturers take active measures to prevent 'random mechanics' from digging around.
I suppose there are many rational and reasonable way to justify why this is so; probably all having some form of "because safety" and "because IP of vendors".