So this morning my task is to teach some C++ code how to POST information to a website. Writing the code is pretty easy, but I need a way of testing it.
I need a website that just shows information POSTed to it.
I could write a web page that did that, but it would probably take me an hour to get it all setup and debugged. But somebody must have done it before, right? I know there are "paste-bin" services where you can throw up arbitrary information that other people can get to later. I want a "POST bin".
Google: postbin
First result: www.postbin.org
Ahhh.... geeky heaven. I love the Internets.
Friday, July 02, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Money, Broken
Last Friday I saw The Money Fix and heard about Valley Time Trade-- a "time bank" in Northampton. You can pay a small yearly membership fee, spend a little bit of time being interviewed and trained to use some facilitating software, and then can sell and buy "time dollars" by working for, or hiring, other time bank members.
They seem like incredibly nice, earnest, caring, enthusiastic people. So it makes me sad to say it, but I think their project is doomed.
Maybe I'm just a big cynical meanie who doesn't see that the Time Bank will foster mutual respect, increase community interaction and connect people with unmet needs to people with untapped resources.
But I think I'm a realist who has looked hard at how economics really works, and I think there are two really fundamental lessons of economics:
On incentives: Valley Time Trade is a "mutual credit system." Everybody starts out with a zero balance, and if I do work for you I get credit and you get a debit that you're supposed to work off at some point in the future, for me or somebody else. The Time Trading Adminstrators keep track of everything, and talk to people to try to get them from either hoarding credits or running up huge debits.
I think that will work really well on a small scale, but will eventually fail. People leaving the system (moving to another state, perhaps) have a natural incentive to leave with a zero or negative balance. Peer pressure and a sense of social obligation will keep that from happening when everybody in the system knows and trusts each other, but eventually that trust will break down. This is the same reason communes and other utopian organizations typically fail after a few years.
On productivity: Time Trade systems assume that any hour of work is the same as any other hour of work. One of their goals is to: "Promote equality, recognizing that all services are necessary to society and equally valuable."
Bullshit. They don't really believe that. I certainly don't believe that soldiers providing me the "service" of keeping me safe from terrorism by bombing the crap out of some foreign country is necessary or valuable.
And they don't really believe that an hour's worth of open heart surgery is as necessary and valuable as an hour's worth of lawn mowing by a ten-year-old kid.
Some people are more productive than others because they're smarter or stronger or have invested a lot of time and effort to learn how to do something. Money is society's way of telling you whether or not you're doing something useful.
Take away that price signal and you'll eventually end up with people doing as little as possible to get by. North Korea is one of the poorest countries on earth because people there are not rewarded for extra effort.
Again, peer pressure and the warm fuzzies from doing nice things for your neighbors will keep Valley Time Trade going for a few years. But eventually there will be a few assholes who exploit it by getting the most valuable services that they can but giving just enough to get by. Which will make the people giving those valuable services a little bit resentful, so maybe they decide to stop giving those valuable, in-demand services and give something else, instead.
The average commune lasts about 10 years. I bet the average Time Bank will last about half that.
They seem like incredibly nice, earnest, caring, enthusiastic people. So it makes me sad to say it, but I think their project is doomed.
Maybe I'm just a big cynical meanie who doesn't see that the Time Bank will foster mutual respect, increase community interaction and connect people with unmet needs to people with untapped resources.
But I think I'm a realist who has looked hard at how economics really works, and I think there are two really fundamental lessons of economics:
- Incentives Matter
- Productivity Matters
On incentives: Valley Time Trade is a "mutual credit system." Everybody starts out with a zero balance, and if I do work for you I get credit and you get a debit that you're supposed to work off at some point in the future, for me or somebody else. The Time Trading Adminstrators keep track of everything, and talk to people to try to get them from either hoarding credits or running up huge debits.
I think that will work really well on a small scale, but will eventually fail. People leaving the system (moving to another state, perhaps) have a natural incentive to leave with a zero or negative balance. Peer pressure and a sense of social obligation will keep that from happening when everybody in the system knows and trusts each other, but eventually that trust will break down. This is the same reason communes and other utopian organizations typically fail after a few years.
On productivity: Time Trade systems assume that any hour of work is the same as any other hour of work. One of their goals is to: "Promote equality, recognizing that all services are necessary to society and equally valuable."
Bullshit. They don't really believe that. I certainly don't believe that soldiers providing me the "service" of keeping me safe from terrorism by bombing the crap out of some foreign country is necessary or valuable.
And they don't really believe that an hour's worth of open heart surgery is as necessary and valuable as an hour's worth of lawn mowing by a ten-year-old kid.
Some people are more productive than others because they're smarter or stronger or have invested a lot of time and effort to learn how to do something. Money is society's way of telling you whether or not you're doing something useful.
Take away that price signal and you'll eventually end up with people doing as little as possible to get by. North Korea is one of the poorest countries on earth because people there are not rewarded for extra effort.
Again, peer pressure and the warm fuzzies from doing nice things for your neighbors will keep Valley Time Trade going for a few years. But eventually there will be a few assholes who exploit it by getting the most valuable services that they can but giving just enough to get by. Which will make the people giving those valuable services a little bit resentful, so maybe they decide to stop giving those valuable, in-demand services and give something else, instead.
The average commune lasts about 10 years. I bet the average Time Bank will last about half that.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Money, Fixed
I'm happiest when I'm working on One Big Thing. I think I've found my next Big Thing, and I'm excited!
Bitcoin is a new kind of money that fixes a bunch of bugs in the old-fashioned money you have in your bank account and your wallet.
Getting excited about a new kind of money is kind of crazy. You're probably thinking I've been brainwashed by the loony wing of Tea Party that believes that the Federal Reserve was illegally created and that we should go back to a solid currency backed by gold stored in Fort Knox. Or that I've drunk the Rainbow Sunshine Kool-Aid of the loony wanna-be Socialists who think that local currencies are the answer to everybody's economic problems.
I'm excited because Bitcoin isn't a pie-in-the-sky theoretical idea for how to make a better currency. It is a working system that a few geeks (like me!) are already using and trying to break. It fixes these bugs in our current monetary systems:
- It doesn't require trust in any central authority; there is no central bank or company or board of directors controlling the currency.
- It is immune from long-term inflation, because it is designed so that only a limited number of Bitcoins will ever be created.
- It is a global currency and, like the Internet, national borders are pretty much irrelevant in the Bitcoin world.
- Because it is based on the best currently-known cryptography, it cannot be counterfeited.
I'm already putting my Bitcoins where my mouth is, and have created a simple little website to get some experience with handling Bitcoins. The Bitcoin Faucet will give you 5 Bitcoins to play with.
For free.
Maybe I am crazy. What percentage of crazy people think they're sane?
Monday, June 07, 2010
Wax or Plastic?
It is more than twice as expensive to use wax paper sandwich bags than cheap, flimsy plastic bags.I know this because a friend asked me to do a little research to try to figure out whether wax or plastic was better for the environment.
Well... wax-coated paper is probably better. Both paraffin wax and plastic are created in oil refineries, but paraffin is biodegradable; there are bacteria that can eat it. Polyethylene plastic isn't biodegradable (although it is theoretically recyclable, recycling it isn't economical or practical).
But is spending money on wax paper bags better for the environment compared to spending less money on plastic bags and spending the money you save on something else? 100 fold-top plastic bags cost under $2; 100 wax bags bags cost over $4.
So what if you used the plastic and then donated the $2 to the Nature Conservancy? Would the environmental benefit outweigh the cost of dumping those 100 plastic bags in a garbage dump?
I dug up the Nature Conservancy annual report, and just dividing their budget by the number of acres of land they were able to acquire last year works out to $1,400 per acre. So giving them the $2 you save by buying plastic lets them purchase and preserve 1/700'th of an acre of land, or about 60 square feet. I'm going to buy plastic and donate more.
Of course, maybe buying the plastic bags will make you less environmentally conscious, and you'll spend that $2 doing something environmentally unfriendly like. Or conversely, maybe buying the wax bags will make you more environmentally conscious.
Unfortunately, this research shows the opposite:
...in effect, a green purchase licenses us to say “I’ve done my good deed for the day, and now I can focus on my own self-interest.” I gave at the office, I paid my dues, I did my share — that sort of thing.So next time you go shopping, buy the cheapest non-organic non-environmentally-friendly option. Then feel guilty about it, and promise yourself that your penance will be writing a nice fat check to your favorite environmental charity.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Progressive Doom and Gloom
Last week the Pioneer Valley chapter of MassBike celebrated bike-to-work week by showing off a bunch of cool bikes and screening some cool videos at the Jones library.
One of the videos they showed was a compelling little video by Annie Leonard called The Story of Stuff.
"The Story of Stuff Project’s mission is to build a strong, diverse, decentralized, cross-sector movement to transform systems of production and consumption to serve ecological sustainability and social wellbeing."
I agree with their mission; who wouldn't? I even agree with their premise-- that parts of our current system are broken; we've got plenty of laws and regulations that harm the environment and create social ills-- and I agree with their conclusion: that we're overly obsessed with "stuff."
But... the video gives me the skeptical willies. I've seen enough propaganda videos to have a pretty good sense of when I'm being manipulated with cherry-picked facts and carefully worded half-truths that reinforce my pre-existing beliefs and fears.
For example, in the first minute of the video, the narrator claims that we're running out of resources-- "the truth is it’s a system in crisis. And the reason it is in crisis is that it is a linear system and we live on a finite planet and you can not run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely."
Ummm, no, that's a straw-man argument. We're getting better and better at creating better and better things with the stuff we have. We're not going to run out of trees or atoms or electrons or ideas any time soon.
The capitalist materials production system adapts. It is not linear; price signals move up and down the production chain, creating feedback loops that make the whole thing wonderfully efficient at giving people what they want.
I'm with Russ Roberts; I think a lot of things people spend money on are dumb and wasteful and useless. I don't spend money on beanie-baby collectibles or fine art or fancy cars, and I think we'd all be better off if people spent less money on sports memorabilia and donated more to worthwhile charities.
But claiming that our consumerist culture is headed for a crisis because we're subjected to too much advertising or because we're not recycling more is wrong.
One of the videos they showed was a compelling little video by Annie Leonard called The Story of Stuff.
"The Story of Stuff Project’s mission is to build a strong, diverse, decentralized, cross-sector movement to transform systems of production and consumption to serve ecological sustainability and social wellbeing."
I agree with their mission; who wouldn't? I even agree with their premise-- that parts of our current system are broken; we've got plenty of laws and regulations that harm the environment and create social ills-- and I agree with their conclusion: that we're overly obsessed with "stuff."
But... the video gives me the skeptical willies. I've seen enough propaganda videos to have a pretty good sense of when I'm being manipulated with cherry-picked facts and carefully worded half-truths that reinforce my pre-existing beliefs and fears.
For example, in the first minute of the video, the narrator claims that we're running out of resources-- "the truth is it’s a system in crisis. And the reason it is in crisis is that it is a linear system and we live on a finite planet and you can not run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely."
Ummm, no, that's a straw-man argument. We're getting better and better at creating better and better things with the stuff we have. We're not going to run out of trees or atoms or electrons or ideas any time soon.
The capitalist materials production system adapts. It is not linear; price signals move up and down the production chain, creating feedback loops that make the whole thing wonderfully efficient at giving people what they want.
I'm with Russ Roberts; I think a lot of things people spend money on are dumb and wasteful and useless. I don't spend money on beanie-baby collectibles or fine art or fancy cars, and I think we'd all be better off if people spent less money on sports memorabilia and donated more to worthwhile charities.
But claiming that our consumerist culture is headed for a crisis because we're subjected to too much advertising or because we're not recycling more is wrong.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Electronic voting Luddite
After Town Meeting ended Monday night I stayed for a demonstration of an electronic voting system. The idea is that maybe investing some money in high-tech gadgets will make Amherst Town Meeting faster and will save the Town Clerk the work of recording the paper ballots we use for Tally votes.
That's a good idea, and I'm glad electronic voting is being considered. But like a lot of good ideas, I think it might be destroyed on the rocks of reality.
First, it took something like 20 minutes to get the electronic voting software up and running. Not a good start!
Once running, I thought the system was pretty darn spiffy, and easy to use. But a few people had trouble, and managed to be confused even after what I thought was a clear explanation of how the voting works (press the button to vote: your name on the screen changes color. Press an invalid button: your name turns yellow, otherwise it cycles
through a rainbow of colors every time you push.)
Once people understood it, it is extremely fast; we completed a test vote in 30 seconds.
If the system was going to be used for dozens of votes per year, then the costs might justify the benefits. The first one or two TM sessions would likely be chaotic as people are trained or re-trained on how to use the clickers, but after using them a few times I think people would figure them out.
If it's used to just to replace Tally/Standing votes, then I think it's a bad idea. We're more likely to spend more time fussing with the technology ("Point of Order: my battery is dead") and training new Town Meeting members how to use the clickers than the time saved. If I recall correctly, we had just one Tally vote and three (or was it two?) standing votes at the past Town Meeting.
And the up-front cost isn't trivial ($12,000-$22,000).
I was going to write about possible security concerns, but assuming all vote results would become public (just as tally votes are made public), I don't think that would be a problem. What WOULD be a problem is people accidentally pressing the wrong buttons on their clickers, and then suspecting that the system got hacked (or that there's a bug) when they see the vote results and their vote is the opposite of what they intended. With no paper trail, it will be impossible to know what happened, and it will take just a couple of incidents for people to lose confidence in the system.
So I guess I'm an electronic voting Luddite. Keep the paper ballots, and instead of spending more time on electronic voting spend some time figuring out how to make the sound system at Town Meeting better.
Real-time captioning would be wonderful, too-- that'd give us a transcript of the meeting, accessibility for the hearing impaired, and closed captioning for the ACTV broadcast...
That's a good idea, and I'm glad electronic voting is being considered. But like a lot of good ideas, I think it might be destroyed on the rocks of reality.
First, it took something like 20 minutes to get the electronic voting software up and running. Not a good start!
Once running, I thought the system was pretty darn spiffy, and easy to use. But a few people had trouble, and managed to be confused even after what I thought was a clear explanation of how the voting works (press the button to vote: your name on the screen changes color. Press an invalid button: your name turns yellow, otherwise it cycles
through a rainbow of colors every time you push.)
Once people understood it, it is extremely fast; we completed a test vote in 30 seconds.
If the system was going to be used for dozens of votes per year, then the costs might justify the benefits. The first one or two TM sessions would likely be chaotic as people are trained or re-trained on how to use the clickers, but after using them a few times I think people would figure them out.
If it's used to just to replace Tally/Standing votes, then I think it's a bad idea. We're more likely to spend more time fussing with the technology ("Point of Order: my battery is dead") and training new Town Meeting members how to use the clickers than the time saved. If I recall correctly, we had just one Tally vote and three (or was it two?) standing votes at the past Town Meeting.
And the up-front cost isn't trivial ($12,000-$22,000).
I was going to write about possible security concerns, but assuming all vote results would become public (just as tally votes are made public), I don't think that would be a problem. What WOULD be a problem is people accidentally pressing the wrong buttons on their clickers, and then suspecting that the system got hacked (or that there's a bug) when they see the vote results and their vote is the opposite of what they intended. With no paper trail, it will be impossible to know what happened, and it will take just a couple of incidents for people to lose confidence in the system.
So I guess I'm an electronic voting Luddite. Keep the paper ballots, and instead of spending more time on electronic voting spend some time figuring out how to make the sound system at Town Meeting better.
Real-time captioning would be wonderful, too-- that'd give us a transcript of the meeting, accessibility for the hearing impaired, and closed captioning for the ACTV broadcast...
Monday, May 17, 2010
To Solar or Not to Solar...
Last week Town Meeting approved giving Community Preservation Act money to Habitat for Humanity to help build affordable housing. $20,000 or so will go towards solar panels on the roof.
I've been tempted to install solar panels (either photovoltaic or hot-water or maybe both) on our roof, so the fact that Habitat decided it's a good idea caught my interest.
It is definitely a good idea for them; it is a very clever way of pre-paying the electricity bill for the lower-income homeowners. Pay $20,000 now in capital costs (which, because solar panels are "stuff" and not a "service", are eligible for all sorts of subsidies) and save the homeowners $X-thousand dollars in electricity bills over the next Y years. Even if it doesn't make economic sense (if the net-present-value of X is less than $20,000) it fits their charitable mission to make home ownership more affordable for lower-income folks and it gives their donors the warm fuzzies to know their money is building green houses.
I don't know if it is a good idea for me. Should I spend a bunch of money and install solar panels on my roof now? Lots of people who will tell me "Yes! Absolutely!" ... but they're either well-meaning-but-possibly-misguided environmentalists or companies that want me to pay them a bunch of money to do the installation. Maybe I'd pay $20,000 to a company who will go out of business in a year or three, and maybe the system I buy is obsolete or breaks in a year or three. Maybe I won't save as much in electricity costs as they claim because most of our electricity usage is at night.
Maybe I'll end up paying an extra couple thousand bucks in a few years when we need to reshingle our roof because the roofers have to disassemble and then reassemble the solar panels.
If solar power is a slam-dunk financial win, they why isn't every Wal-Mart in America covered in solar panels?
I'm a technological optimist, and I think that solar panels will be a slam-dunk financial win pretty soon. They probably already are in sunny places like Arizona. The fact that companies are springing up with "residential solar lease" plans is a really good sign, and if I can find a residential solar lease company that operates in Western Massachusetts, offers leases of less than 10 years, and can point me to some satisfied customers I'd definitely sign up.
I've been tempted to install solar panels (either photovoltaic or hot-water or maybe both) on our roof, so the fact that Habitat decided it's a good idea caught my interest.
It is definitely a good idea for them; it is a very clever way of pre-paying the electricity bill for the lower-income homeowners. Pay $20,000 now in capital costs (which, because solar panels are "stuff" and not a "service", are eligible for all sorts of subsidies) and save the homeowners $X-thousand dollars in electricity bills over the next Y years. Even if it doesn't make economic sense (if the net-present-value of X is less than $20,000) it fits their charitable mission to make home ownership more affordable for lower-income folks and it gives their donors the warm fuzzies to know their money is building green houses.
I don't know if it is a good idea for me. Should I spend a bunch of money and install solar panels on my roof now? Lots of people who will tell me "Yes! Absolutely!" ... but they're either well-meaning-but-possibly-misguided environmentalists or companies that want me to pay them a bunch of money to do the installation. Maybe I'd pay $20,000 to a company who will go out of business in a year or three, and maybe the system I buy is obsolete or breaks in a year or three. Maybe I won't save as much in electricity costs as they claim because most of our electricity usage is at night.
Maybe I'll end up paying an extra couple thousand bucks in a few years when we need to reshingle our roof because the roofers have to disassemble and then reassemble the solar panels.
If solar power is a slam-dunk financial win, they why isn't every Wal-Mart in America covered in solar panels?
I'm a technological optimist, and I think that solar panels will be a slam-dunk financial win pretty soon. They probably already are in sunny places like Arizona. The fact that companies are springing up with "residential solar lease" plans is a really good sign, and if I can find a residential solar lease company that operates in Western Massachusetts, offers leases of less than 10 years, and can point me to some satisfied customers I'd definitely sign up.
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