Halting Problem, Tipene O'Regan, Wages

I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M GOING TO TWITTER ABOUT IT.”
Topolanek ... sent off to hell?

Earth hour ... what the hell is the point of burning candles? 4.7 grams of candle wax = 75Whr electric Carbon


desertrockenergyproject

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Ada Lovelace day (24th): Famous women computer types.
There was the woman at University ca 67 who was doing X-Ray crystallography using a 1401, trays of punched cards.
A counter example to the ideas that women are poor at spatial imagination and maths.
(cant recall her name sorry)

Then in 69, Margaret (surname?), who taught me COBOL. She was wryly amused when I took to sprawling on the floor with coloured pens, trying to make sense of the "Matching Records" program which some genius had crammed into 128K ... It had Altered GOTOs - already the previous year Edsger Dijkstra had declared "GOTO considered harmful"
... the sole Govt computer, a 360/40 ... how we used to gaze at its many flickering lights, trying to decide the Halting Problem ... a practiced eye could detect repetitive patterns in the lights, indicating a Loop.

The IBM chain printer was a screaming monster, more advanced than other parts of the computer.. we would print huge reports on expensive fanfold paper, 3 inches thick, which would go to various Govt departments, where I believe they would look only at the last page summary.
I produced the first computer graph in the New Zealand Government, asterisks showing that single vehicle accidents peaked at 1:30 Sunday morning.

Mark-Sense cards - are those used anymore?

Papertape - we would take the pile of tape from the read bin and throw it down the stairwell, to make reeling it in easier. Sometimes a wag from the Navy, several floors down, would reach out and break the tape. They were safe behind guardposts.

Memory. Hard to believe but memory was hand-woven by Mexican girls. - 3 wires through each ferrite torus.

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Crisis because wages are too high in the West

Packets made globalization possible
Packets in the form of 40 foot containers, which made export machines and materials, import of finished product cheap
- assuming ship/rail/truck costs remain low

Then numerically controlled machines became controlled by generic PC's
Then TCP/IP, cryptography, data packets made cross-world communication easy, so offshore subsidiaries could me managed.

Also easily done, Off-shore call centres, programming - which is database access and report generation, mostly.

Metropolitan centres like to employ a proportion of the hometown educated, so reports may still be done at home.

The next move is fab: smart, cheap numerically controlled machines making whole objects.
That, and rare oil, might bring the jobs home, after the workes have been softened up.
Still might need those Chinese girls to sew shirts...

Moreover, the capitalist economy will not automatically correct itself. It has no automatic self-regulatory device. [5] Quite the contrary, “an investment strike is a particularly formidable weapon, since it requires no planning or coordination to implement. Indeed, it will come into play ‘automatically’ if a government should come to power deemed unfriendly to business interests.” [6] As long as labor is a cost of production, investors will be highly motivated to drive wages as close to zero as possible through capital flight and capital strike. [7] [8]

thomaspainescorner

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Tipene O'Regan and my Grandfathers Cane
My Mothers father was the head of the PSA, the civil service union. He had a cane with a rather fine greenstone (Pounamu, Jade) handle.
Stephen O'Regan, as he was then known, was a frequent visitor to our house in Thorndon.
Friday nights, damp gaberdine coats, Bluff oysters from a sack, fried in oatmeal...
Anyway it turned out that Stephen was a Maori - the subject had never come up. Sometime in the 70s changed his name to Tipene.
Somehow he got possession of Grandad's cane - possibly borrowed in order to repair it? And then he decided that as my grandfather was white, he couldnt rightfully posses greenstone. The cane was never returned.

Tipene went on to lead Nga-i Tahu, who in the 90s negotiated treaty claims and got large chunks of the South Island and major fishing rights. Tipene got a knighthood. Maybe he is now called Sir Tipene.

I understand pre-contact Maori didnt have permanent settlements on the West Coast, Pounamu country. It is said they traveled there with groups of slaves who were victuals for the voyage. That was then.
Nowadays it is said that 'Sealord', the Nga-i Tahu fishing corporation, is laying off workers for reasons of profit, rather than necessity. Whatever that means.
One would hope for a new kind of corporation, one that wouldnt pollute nor exploit. God knows Maori are banged up in prison at world-leading rates. Something about refusal to accept quietly positions at the bottom of the heap to which the dominant cuLture assigns them.

Erratum: rnz Media Watch erred [!] Sealord is not part owned by Ngāi Tahu it is part owned by Aotearoa Fisheries Limited
which is supposed to benefit all Maori. I look forward eagerly to a new form of Capitalism which is supposed to benefit the people.
I read that Sealord has laid off shore workers, intends to process fish onboard a new boat. May well be more efficient. Perhaps this efficiency benefits "all iwi", hard lines to the redundant workers. Capitalism and concern, can they co-exist?
[Cooperatives may be more realistic than grand promises to benefit "all iwi"]




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