We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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From this weekend, the adoption of RFID tags in the retailing industry has become a matter of time. At a recent conference, organised by the RFID non profit standards organisation, EPCglobal, both Walmart and Tesco warned their suppliers that they expected takeup of this technology. By forcing the adoption of RFID technology through their purchasing power, RFID will soon become ubiquitous in retail, over the next two years.
Colin Cobain, UK IT director for Tesco, advised suppliers to get involved and take a considered view of the new technology. “Some manufacturers are going down the route of slap-and-ship – I urge you not to do that… If you start of slapping-and-shipping, you’ll get a bad name in your organisation.” He added that the question about RFID was not “whether or not it will make a huge difference in the world: the question is, will you be ready?”
Simon Langford, manager of RFID strategy for Wal-Mart and Asda, said “start engaging in RFID today… don’t sit back and wait for it to happen.” Wal-Mart, remember, were so enthusiastic about the technology that they issued a mandate telling their top suppliers to get the tags in their supply chain by 1 January, 2005, or else.
WalMart began their testing of RFID tags in the supply chain on Friday in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Their links with EPCglobal are also clear:
EPCglobal is a joint venture of EAN International and the Uniform Code Council. It is the organisation chosen by industry to develop standards for RFID technology in the global supply chain based on user needs and business requirements.
As a charter member of EPCglobal, Wal-Mart fully adheres to its core principles related to privacy issues, including consumer notice, consumer education and consumer choice. Wal-Mart’s Linda Dillman and HP’s Dick Lampman serve on the board of directors of EPCglobal.
To follow the work of EPCglobal, the website setting standards for electronic product codes can be found here, including details of their membership and policies.
It’s May Day Bank Holiday and the traditional British weather is gripping the South-East. Any hope of heading down the coast for a jolly boys’ ended with the incessant rain. Who would fancy pitch and putt in the wet.
Confined to the lounge with the Daily Mail, my eyes lit upon a quote from a politically correct employee of the BBC, in an article on how British citizens, formerly from East-Central Europe, viewed this country:
The British are intrinsically opposed to bureaucracy. A new car can be registered without visiting a government office – still unthinkable in Eastern Europe.
Having experienced communist rule first-hand, I was surprised to hear some educated people in Britain advocating socialism and never asking themselves why that ‘paradise’ needed barbed wire to keep people in.
Uttered by Andrius Uzkalnis, of Lithuania, who works for the BBC World Service.
Besides this, does anyone know what music is worth listening to whilst staring out of the window at the monotony of rain and wishing for sunnier days?
I spent a couple of hours at Tokyo Narita airport yesterday morning, changing planes on the way back from Sydney to London. Like many geeks people, I like to check frequently to check my e-mail / check the news / see if anyone has insulted me in the Samizdata comments section, so I wandered around the terminal looking for an internet terminal on which to do so. Narita is well served with such terminals, so I was quickly satisfied.
What is interesting here is that there are internet terminals provided by two separate companies here. The ones on the left are provided by a local ISP, and users are charged ¥100 (about £0.50) for ten minutes of use. The ones to the right are provided by Intel, and are free to use. The photograph illustrates that the usage patterns are indeed what would be predicted by the laws of economics.
It is actually quite common now to find free internet terminals for use in airport terminals, particularly in airside transit lounges where passengers may spend a few hours between flights. This is a relatively simple and cheap amenity for airports to provide to their customers, so they do. Often though, the airport does not even need to provide it: some technology company will set it up for free, in the belief that the sorts of people changing planes at major airports are the sorts of people they want to advertise their services to. As well as free internet terminals provided by Intel, I have also seen free internet terminals provided by Yahoo at Tokyo airport. (I have seen free internet terminals provided by Samsung at Sydney airport which never seem to be working – probably not a good way for the company to advertise itself). The good thing at Tokyo is that they seem to be willing to allow competition between various organisations that want to set up such terminals, and they apparently don’t have to be free.
Which when you think about it makes a certain amount of sense. If you provide a good for less than the market price, access to the good will normally end up being regulated by queues and quotas (ie willingness to wait, and restrictions on the amount of the good you consume, regardless of how much you want) rather than by ability or willingness to pay for it. (The public health systems of the world, which are full of people waiting endlessly for medical care, are prime illustrations of this). In busy periods, queues are likely to form for the free terminals, and at that point people who really need to access the internet quickly are still likely to be able to do so if they are willing to spend money. And such people can then use the terminals for as long as they like, whereas time restrictions are normally placed on free terminals. (From this we can also conclude that the health system of Australia, in which people who are willing to pay more can jump the queues of the public system and have their healthcare done privately, is better than the situation in Canada, where private provision of healthcare is essentially illegal).
In practice though, I doubt the providers of the for pay terminals at Narita are making much money, simply because the provision of free terminals there is so good. Putting them behind security restricts their use to passengers, and therefore demand cannot grow in the way it does for many free goods. They may get some use at busy times, but I suspect not much. However, in certain other airports (for instance Singapore) where there are free terminals but not many of them, for pay terminals could (and do) also get a lot of use.
And in the case of healthcare, where demand is capable of growing completely out of hand if you eliminate price sensitivity completely, private provision that people pay for directly is the only way that anyone will end up with reasonable access to healthcare. Given that (unlike with free internet terminals) people are paying for the public health system out of their own taxes in the first place, the argument for eliminating most public health care and having proper price sensitivity from the start is pretty strong.
Kofi Annan has perfected the Holy Man style of public performance. He speaks very quietly, in that exquisitely enunciated African accent, and people just take if for granted that he is a Good Man and a Good Thing. But Per Ahlmark (linked to by Instapundit) shows him to be a less than perfect human being. He describes the inaction and treachery of the UN, as lead by Annan, in first promising, and then failing, to protect the Bosnian Muslims from the Serbs. But, he continues:
No one should be surprised by the UN’s inaction, because only the year before it had demonstrated utter incompetence in facing the fastest genocide in history – the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in just 100 days. UN forces in Rwanda in 1994 were Annan’s responsibility before and during the crisis.
Annan was alerted four months before Hutu activists began their mass killings by a fax message from Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general commanding UN forces in Rwanda. Dallaire described in detail how the Hutus were planning “anti-Tutsi extermination”. He identified his source “a Hutu” and reported that arms were ready for the impending ethnic cleansing.
Dallaire requested permission to evacuate his informant and to seize the arms cache. Annan rejected both demands, proposing that Dallaire make the informant’s identity known to Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, even though the informant had expressly named the president’s closest entourage as the authors of the genocide blueprint.
This is the man who is being seriously proposed as the next ruler of Iraq, because he would be an improvement.
Annan, Ahlmark makes clear, is an object of religious worship, a human repository of millenarian hopes, rather than a man who has earned the adoration he basks in.
A similar error of false adoration was made by the more elderly admirers of Kofi Annan, when younger, with that other African Holy Man of severe actual unholiness, Julius Nyerere. As with Nyerere, it is hard to tell what proportion of Annan’s catastrophic blunders to attribute to sheer stupidity, and how much to actual wickedness. I suspect a combination of the two in the form of a murderously stubborn stupidity, which combines intellectual mediocrity with an immoral unwillingness to admit to error, possibly all floating in the same delusions as those that engulf the minds of his worshippers, but perhaps caused by mere vanity.
Robert Mugabe is another such. Although, having a slightly more severe and steely public persona, he is more readily identified as the mass murderer that he is. He should have gone to RADA. At the very least he should lose the Hitler moustache.
The vision Kofi Annan personifies with such theatrical precision is that of a single, infinitely benign World State, which will cure all ills, correct all injustices, right all wrongs, and put down the mighty from their seats. Allelujah. Especially those horrid Americans. That this same man might be an ill, a perpetrator of injustice, a wrongdoer and far too mighty one, and that the vision he personifies might be a road to ruin of our entire species, starting with its poorest and most unfortunate, and that those ghastly Americans may in fact be energetically rescuing the human race from a great and self-sacrificial folly with no good purpose to it whatever, is a thought that is simply not bearable to the World Statists. So they caste it aside. Mere evidence has nothing to do with it. To cease from the worship of Kofi would mean changing their entire way of thinking and believing and feeling, and that they will not do, no matter how much blood soaks their altar.
David Renwick is scornful of the 52 diplomats who signed a letter denouncing Tony Blair’s Iraq policies, and is equally scornful of those who described this letter as a revolt by The Establishment:
The fact that the letter was not signed by a couple of hundred other former ambassadors, including this one, was thought scarcely worthy of mention.
So who were these signatories?
Many of the signatories were former Arabists in the Foreign Office, affectionately known as the Camel Corps. Some members of the Corps have shown a tendency over the years to develop a quite passionate attachment to the Arab world that, unfortunately, has not always been reciprocated by the Arabs. They have tended to concentrate on the crimes of the Israelis, rather than those of the Palestinians. Most of us would prefer to be more even-handed.
Stephen Pollard is even more scornful. He links to a piece by Andrew Roberts in the Times which says that whenever the Foreign Offices protests like this it tends to be wrong:
TONY BLAIR should be delighted that no fewer than 52 former diplomats have written to him to say that his Middle Eastern policy is “doomed to failure”. Whenever a collective view has developed in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office it has been only a matter of time – and usually not long, either – before it has been proved spectacularly wrong.
So the 52 are either wrong because they aren’t the majority view at the Foreign Office, or because they are. But either way, they are definitely wrong.
Pollard also links to Melanie Phillips, who is even more scornful. To her the Camel Corps is also “The Establishment”.
The main personal consequence for the 52 diplomats of having put their heads above the parapet like this has been to draw attention to all the financial interests they have which predispose them towards saying what they have said.
Personally, I am not surprised that people have financial interests in alignment with their opinions. Most of us prefer to make money doing things we believe in. And if these guys believe in making friends with Arabs … For me, the question is, not: Who paid them to say this? It is: Are they right?
It is very disappointing that some officers in the British and US military seem to have lost control over their troops in the manner that the reports in the media are highlighting. No, I am not about to join the ludicrous cat’s chorus equating the Allied forces with Saddam’s institutional mass murderers, but no one who actually cares about the mess in Iraq eventually ending the right way up can be anything less than dismayed.
Certainly I understand how the stresses of urban combat can lead to itchy trigger fingers but for the custodians of prisoners to have allowed this to happen is completely impossible to justify. That the perpetrators felt the need to take pictures of their criminal actions suggests that we are dealing with your common-or-garden variety of psychopath rather than people ‘merely’ brutalised into callous indifference or shooting first/asking questions later due to being in a combat zone.
The only way this can be salvaged is for the clear difference between the torturers of Iraq’s ancien regime and the US/UK’s militaries to me made starkly clear: the people responsible must be subjected to swift and decisive military justice.
And while we are on the subject of ‘what the military should be doing’, can anyone please explain why the Italians who were kidnapped in Iraq the other day had been disarmed by US troops at a checkpoint? Whilst the fighting against the Islamo-fascists seems to be progressing, in other ways the last few days have hardly been days to bask in the glow of a job being well done by some of ‘our boys’, which is a great pity indeed.
I cannot help thinking that whilst the leadership in-theatre did well during the conventional conflict, perhaps a far reaching change in local military commanders might not go amiss as it is not enough to just manage the battles in a situation like this.
Today, May 1st, is a big day for the European Union because today is ‘Accession Day’ whereupon 10 new countries will be officially enjoined into the Union:
Leaders from the EU’s 25 member states are taking part in celebrations, after a night of festivities heralded its historic expansion.
The 15 old members welcomed in Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia at midnight.
Yes, it is celebration time. The ‘family’ of 15 countries becomes the even bigger ‘family’ of 25 countries as hands are clasped in firm handshakes across once-inpenetrable borders in a new spirit of continent-wide brotherhood, sisterhood and transgenderhood. Ring out the bells, sound the trumpets and let the cliches flow like a swollen river.
Chief among the consequences that is causing excitement, even outside the usual Europhile circles, is the prospect of droves of fresh-faced and energetic young Slavs who will pour into the cities of Western Europe eager to programme computers, brew coffee and deliver hot pizza to Western Euopeans, most of whom will be quietly relieved that they are being served and waited upon by people who are unlikely to be donating any portion of their wage packets to Al-Qaeda.
I can sympathise with this enthusiasm for I, too, hope that this scenario will come about and, if it does, I expect that it will largely prove to be a very good thing for all concerned. → Continue reading: Misery loves company
Australians are known for having a fondness for drinking alcohol. This is all part of the general easygoing Australian lifestyle, beaches, beer, BBQ’s, and an all round good time.
As you can imagine, those killjoy statists in government here have always found this to be deplorable.
No government in Australia has ever had the courage/suicidal tendencies to actually try to impose prohibition, but in general, the trade in alcoholic beverages is one of the most highly regulated type of commerce in Australia.
And, as we have a Federal system of government, and the regulation of the sale of alcohol is a state matter, we have in effect seven different regulatory environments.
Although in nearly each case, the regulations started out as a Puritan attempt to regulate the drinking habits of Australia, over time the regulations have become a way for various rent-seekers to protect their interests at the expense of the consumer.
This can have unforseen consequences… → Continue reading: Here’s to a free market in wine!
Problem: beer cans that get too hot. Answer:
… scientists have come up with a solution: the self-cooling beer can.
Slightly longer than a normal drink can, it simply needs a twist to cool its content down. It can, its inventors claim, cool a beer to the perfect temperature of 3C within three minutes.
The I C (Instant Cool) Can works by using water evaporation. The top half is surrounded by a layer of watery gel. The base contains a water-absorbing material in a vacuum, and a special heat-absorbing chamber.
When the bottom is twisted, a seal between the two halves is broken. The vacuum draws the gel, and the heat, into the base. The gel is absorbed by the material, the heat is absorbed by the chamber – and the drink gets cold.
You see? Now why didn’t anyone think of that before? Because they were too busy thinking about big insoluble problems instead of small(er – hot beer is no small problem) soluble ones is why.
I spent last night pondering, among other things, Europe’s demographic decline. What the hell can I do to stop that? Have some kids? Maybe, but not nearly enough kids to solve the problem. And I never really have been one for actually solving problems, even small ones. What I can do is salute those who do solve problems. On the whole, they are called “capitalists”.
My thanks to Dave Barry. Quite what the impact of self-cooling beer cans will be on Europe’s demographic decline is beyond the scope of this posting.
Here is an excellent piece of political and cultural commentary, about the excellent TV show South Park and its excellent political and cultural commentary, from Michael Cust.
A brief survey of some of the more salient libertarian episodes bears this out:
Episode 713 takes aim at Hollywood director Rob Reiner and the anti-smoking movement. The movement – and especially Reiner – is portrayed as, and called, fascist, controlling, and deceitful, while big tobacco is portrayed as honest, hardworking, and well-rooted in American history.
In Episode 616 drug war propagandists are labelled “ultra-liberals” who operate on the principle that “the end justifies the means.”
In Episode 614, political correctness is condemned. When the boys (the main characters) refuse to tolerate their intolerable homosexual teacher, their parents take them to the Museum of Tolerance, where tolerance of everyone (except tobacco smokers) is taught. When this fails, the boys are sent to a gulag called “Death Camp of Tolerance,” where they are forced at gunpoint to produce arts and crafts that don’t discriminate along the lines of race and sexual orientation.
In Episode 301, the boys travel to the Costa Rican rainforest as members of an environmentalist choir. While there, they learn how dangerous and deadly the natural world can be – as a snake kills their tour guide and aboriginals kidnap them. Upon their return to civilization, the boys put on a musical performance that admonishes smug first-world environmental activists. (In this episode, Friends star Jennifer Aniston guest stars.)
But this is just scratching the surface of a fruitful and deep social commentary that comes out libertarian on pressing current events. Just about any issue that libertarians hold up as an instance of state excess or market success is portrayed in the show …
All of which is very noble and very true. But what I like about South Park is that it is so damn funny.
What I believe this shows is that “Hollywood” is not nearly as biased against our kinds of opinions as people with our kinds of opinions, who happen to be talentless bores, often claim. It is just that Hollywood is biased against them and against all other talentless bores, for being talentless bores. What Hollywood is biased in favour of, as is often pointed out here – especially by this Samizdatista in these two much admired postings – is making money. If people with our kinds of opinions can help Hollywood to do that, Hollywood will welcome them with open arms.
Hollywood, like Cartman’s mother, is a dirty slut.
Cust also has some interesting and provokingly positive things to say about Michael Moore, and about the fact that South Park‘s Matt Stone contributed (in a good rather than anti-gun way) to Bowling for Columbine.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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