Representation vs. Reality

I have noticed a tendency in people to confuse how something looks with what it is or how it works. Take, for instance the Registry Editor in Windows.

My view of the Registry Editor, looking at HKLM\SYSTEM\RNG

In every folder (technically called "key"), there is a line in the main pane titled "(Default)", usually with containing the string "(value not set)" in the Data column. Notice how I didn't say it contained that text as its data. You'd be surprised how many programmers write that literal text to an entry literally titled "(Default)".

The thing is, there is no entry called that, and its value isn't that string; it's not set. What the Registry Editor calls an entry named "(Default)" is a holdover from 16-bit Windows. It could be thought of as data attached to the folder/key itself, rather than an entry in it. "(value not set)" indicates an absence of that data.

So, make sure you're not confusing the representation of something with reality. Do some research; see what's really going on.

Bind the Minimum Wage to the Consumer Price Index

This is an excerpt from a paper I wrote for a "government and politics" class. After sharing my ideas, I was encouraged to post this one online.

The minimum wage exists to prevent employers from exploiting their workers. However, as the minimum wage is increased, it decreases the demand for labor. Small businesses simply stop hiring unskilled workers when the wage required to hold an employee is above the value of the employee’s contributions. In this way, the minimum wage, when set too high, prevents small businesses from expanding and makes it difficult for unskilled workers to get any job at all. As with other price floor impositions, it creates surplus that few are willing to buy. Additionally, a minimum wage that grows too fast removes the financial incentive for those unskilled workers to become skilled, leading to a decline in overall productivity.


It is, on the other hand, reasonable and appropriate that the minimum wage be periodically increased to account for inflation. The Consumer Price Index measures changes in the value of the dollar by comparing the prices of certain goods in the present to their prices at a fixed point in the past. If the minimum wage is set to an agreed-upon dollar amount in the present and bound proportionally to the CPI, it will forever have that same value; the periodic debates on whether to increase it and by how much will be gone. The cost of living is different in different areas of the country, so it is reasonable that state and local governments should decide on the present dollar value that buys the goods needed to live in their areas, and then bind the growth of that amount to the CPI.

Landscaping vs. Decapitation

There's a lot of talk in politics about "leveling the playing field" so that everybody gets the same opportunities. Usually, the same people that use that phrase also support major tax rate increases for the successful, or all-out income redistribution at the extreme. Those policies push apparent success toward uniformity.

The leveling of the field is an important goal. It's really a shame that a person born in a certain place could have almost no hope for a high-paying job compared to someone born just a few miles away in a nicer city. (Bring your own race anecdotes.) However, it's not such a noble goal to make everybody the same.

Let's break out the physical world analogies. Suppose we have a group of people standing on a field, and that this field isn't level (i.e. some parts are physically higher than others). These people are going to partake in some competition or event in which height is advantageous. Of course, it's not fair that some people should start lower than others. The event organizers should do some landscaping to ensure everybody has the same chance before merit is considered.

However, let's suppose the event organizers subscribe to the "redistribution" philosophy, and want everybody to have the same success - that is, the same final height - so they need to take off from the top. That's not landscaping, that's cutting people's heads off.

So before we start trying to level the playing field, let's stop to make sure we're landscaping the ground under people's feet, not decapitating them.

Accessibility of Presidential Debates

I don't have a cable subscription, but I do have an interest in the 2016 presidential debates, so I figured I would just go to the CNBC web site to livestream tonight's debate. To my chagrin, I was presented with a "sign in with your cable provider" screen when I tried to actually watch the event.

It seems strange to me that people should have to pay to watch events that are entirely dedicated to helping them choose who to vote for. The whole situation is begging for accusations of allowing only the rich/successful to vote. Usually I'm not a fan of allowing the government to tinker with media management, but I wish the hosts of political debates were required to make the event freely watchable.

Stop the updates, I want to get off

There are rumors that Microsoft is going to move to a subscription model for Windows licensing in which every machine will just get new versions of the OS as they come. I can't know whether those rumors are true or not, but I do know that there are programs and companies with that licensing model, and that with Windows 10 Microsoft is approaching an OS that automatically updates itself without any choice from the user.

I am not at all OK with that.

There is no reason a computer should require an Internet connection to function. Operating systems are not like cable subscriptions; the only service being provided - updates - is not strictly necessary. If I buy something, and I pay for it, then I should own it, and not have to change what I own whenever some company thinks I should.

If, for whatever reason, I don't like the next version of a program or OS, I should be free to keep the version I have - the one I bought and paid for. If I happen to like a later version, I'll happily pay for it, but that's my choice.

Lojban StackExchange Site Proposal

The StackExchange network is composed of moderated, community-run Q&A sites, each with a defined scope. New sites are added through a democratic process, in a place called Area 51. (Yes, really. But not that Area 51.) Currently, there is a proposal to create a site about the Lojban language. I think that would be really neat, so I participated in the proposal's definition phase. It is now in the commitment phase, so it needs people that are in effect signing up for the private beta.

If you're interested, visit the proposal and commit!

How are you going to pay for that?

People like to make and talk about plans for things they want to do. That's great - planning is always helpful - but it's easy to slip from strategizing into shopping. I recently watched a certain political event, and I noticed a theme of promising things that would require all sorts of extra revenue to implement. (Of course, the other party has been guilty of this too.) How are they going to pay for that? I have no idea.

The FTC team I am mentoring is currently trying to put together a plan, but they keep slipping into lists of features (some of which will be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to implement along with other important features), completely ignoring the reality that somebody has to figure out how to make it work. Lots of things that look easy when part of a ten-point "plan" will turn out unexpectedly thorny in practice. Make a plan, not a shopping list.

Delivering feel-good speeches about miraculous government programs and writing about all the amazing things a robot will do might appease constituents and impress coaches, but you will be in serious trouble if you try to carry out the cardboard-mockup plan before the details are figured out.