Organizational Longevity

There are really only two major organizational goals:

1. Ensure that as much of the interaction surface is positive sum, and that the rest is carefully managed.

2. Accumulate capital as optimally as possible in respect to the long term future.

Purpose

Ayn Rand had it wrong. Without external goals, organisms tend to go insane.

Common expressions

Before I begin, I admit - I'm pedantic. I see this as a source of pride. In my experience, the source of the vast majority (> 2 SD) of disagreements between myself and other people are semantic in nature. A more clean and precise use of language is something I aspire to.

With that in mind, anyone who uses the following figures of speech instantly lose my respect:

99%

99% of people who use the number 99% don't actually mean what they say. They just mean most. But instead of using the word most, they try to puff up their argument by claiming what is usually, in context, a preposterous majority. If you are actually confident of the data and want to say 99%, just use 2.5 standard deviations instead - it means the same thing, and makes me want to trust you more.

democratization

When people use this term, they use it to describe the cost of participation decreasing. This is, strictly speaking, accurate. People who use this term also use it to imply that there will, in the future, be a more even distribution of returns because of this decreasing cost of participation. The problem with this theory is that all secondary (or higher order) human properties, that is to say properties that depend on other properties, are necessarily distributed in a Pareto distribution. This will always be the case because primary human properties are always (as far as I can tell) distributed in a Gaussian distribution.

community

See here.

This list is short right now because I've forgotten a number of figures of speech that deeply annoy me; it will be updated in the future when I remember or run across said phrases.

Community and the death of meaning

I just read a small discussion on Roundtable; I really like on thing Clay Shirky said.

First, a procedural note: Using my prerogative as Chair, I am banning the word 'community' from this discussion, as it describes too many things too vaguely to be of much use.

Community. Together duty.

It used to be that almost all people lived in small, tightly bound groups. People looked out for each others' welfare, this also meant that people had a duty to abide by local laws and norms. This level of closeness, of deep integration between people, has its downsides, but is a great way to live for those who feel the price is worth it.

In short, it's not a community unless you know everyone's childrens' names. While not literally true, it gets to the point - communities are close and (because of Dunbar's Number) small.

And then, semantic diffusion happened, to the point where people describe all users of the Linux operating system as a community.

Now it's true that language changes. I hardly ever use the word "whom" for example. But how do I talk about concepts that used to have words, but now do not?

Metal of Honor

It is well that war is so terrible — lest we should grow too fond of it. - Robert E Lee

link

Truly, it is in war that men reveal themselves in all their terrifying majesty.

WUXGA Laptops

I just had the depressing realization that Apple might be the only manufacture to offer WUXGA screens for laptops in a year or two.

Not sure what sort of "professionals" the other laptop manufacturers are try to sell to, but as far as I can tell, resolution is the only thing that matters now days (slightly tongue-in-cheek - a solid state drive will give a good boost - but only slightly).

It is downright depressing when projected tablets pack 2560x1600 into 10", yet the highest resolution one can get on mainstream 17" laptops is 1600x900.

Update: a very encouraging counter example has been found! The Sony VAIO Z offers fully 1080p in a 13" form-factor. If only the base model didn't cost $2000+

Forwarding from Google Apps to Gmail: Well-Nigh Impossible

The Problem:

You can't forward mail from a Google Apps account to a Gmail account.

My main email address is a gmail address. I administer some domains with Google Apps set up on them. It would be great if I could just forward all that email to my main account. Alas, this doesn't seem to be possible. I even tried forwarding from Google Apps to Hotmail (which did work) and from there to Gmail. No go. It is impossible for mail to get forwarded from Google Apps to a Gmail account.

Well, almost impossible.

The Solution:

In order for the forwarding to work, you have to whitelist email addresses under settings->"accounts and import"->"send mail as". Any address you can send an email as, will get forwarded to your account. Pretty much kills the utility of a catch-all address, but it's good enough to prevent me from changing email addresses.