There's something humorously anachronistic about a computer generated caveman. Today I'm having a good day. I think it's because a lot ideas I've come to believe over the past couple of years are starting to really sink in. I see Open Source as the next big thing, not just technologically either. I mentioned that study that concluded that our success as a species was due to increases in life expectancy because ideas and culture were passed down. There is a very strong link between life expectency and open source software because OSS doesn't die with a company like billions of lines of proprietary code have over the past decades.

Software is an amazing thing, it's pure creativity. This sounds crazy but software to me can be a beautiful thing. I remember sitting down and looking at all of the wacky structures and systems in place just to facilitate the creation of software, I was just thinking about how mind blowing this guy's code was and how small a percentage of the population understood the beauty in what he'd created. That for me was the true definition of modesty, creating something great simply for the fun of it, regardless of recognition.

Idea(s) of the day:
1> Software before the Internet enabled rise of Open Source was like a race of brilliant, shortlived cavemen, unable to educate their children. The role of the human population explosion in the likelyhood of the singularity is something that's probably overlooked because it's a boring stat compared to Moore's Law.

2> Corportations aren't willing to take if it means giving too. Even if the net effect is positive. That will change. Are Intellectual property and Capitalism incompatible?

I need to start writing articles for magazines, see what happens. There isn't enough time in the day for everything I want to accomplish.

"Open source can build around the blockages of the industrial producers of the 20th century," says Yale's Benkler. "It can provide a potential source of knowledge materials from which we can build the culture and economy of the 21st century."

If that sounds melodramatic, consider how far things have come in the past decade. Torvalds' hobbyists have become an army. Britannica's woes are Wikipedia's gains. In genetics and biotech, open source promises a sure path to breakthroughs. These early efforts are mere trial runs for what open source might do out in the world at large. The real test, the real potential, lies not in the margins. It lies in making something new, in finding a better way. Open source isn't just about better software. It's about better everything.

I'm going to do more research on the Benkler guy. I really should go to law school, it's what I want to do.

Update:
Amazingly good Benkler lecture

I'm beginning to smell a paradox which I've read lead to key insights into the fundamental nature of things. I think that's true because you've got two ideas, assumed to be true that conflict. One of them is wrong so if we solve the problem we can be more sure about the truth of the other and begin to look at the reason for the assumtion of the false truth. That'll probably tell us something about human nature. Automatic thoughts are a big part of Cognitive Therapy which is taking the Psychological world by storm. I wonder if that's just a coincidence.