A few weblog posts in the last few days have my formally-uneducated mind spinning. First, there was a point-counterpoint between Dan James of CEOBlues.com and Peter Rukavina of Reinvented.net on the nature of government spending and waste. Then, a post my Matt Linderman at Signal vs. Noise on the growth of the average work week in America.

These ideas helped to coalesce a question that has been bouncing around in my head, in one form or another, for years: Is efficiency a good thing?

Take the example of a small fictional nation-state that is run by a staff of 1,000. Maybe 100 of these staff are accountants who manage taxes and the financial affairs of the state. Then one day someone invents a computer that allows one accountant to do the work of 10. You cut your accounting department down from 100 to 10 and the work still gets done.

Is this a good thing? First, ninety people have lost their jobs. This is not good. Some may become successful entrepreneurs while others may go hungry.

However, you can now reduce taxes with the money saved on staffing costs. With their extra cash from the lower taxes, the happy people of our little nation-state will go to the movies and get those neon under-lights for their hot-rods. This means the movie house and neon hot-rod joint will hire more staff. Will they hire enough to counter the job cuts that started it all?

This starts to lean towards the question of which is better: big government or small government. However, I don’t want to become ensnared in politics, as my question (hopefully) goes beyond the public sector.

Take the accounting-software layoff example above and transpose it to a private corporation. Obviously, efficiency is a good for the closed system of one company. Fewer accountants means more money left over for shareholders. However, I want to know how a change like this affects the larger system, the economy and society as a whole.

What does it mean when we invent a robot that can mow our lawns for us? We all have a few extra minutes to spare each week (how does free time affect the economy?). Lawn care businesses go under. A robot-mower industry is born. What is the net outcome of all of these changes to the system? Is there a net gain to the economy?

What happens if you extrapolate this scenario even further? Assuming it is possible (a questionable assumption, admittedly), imagine a world in which all or most work is done by robots. What does this mean for the economy? Do we continue inventing new services and products to entertain ourselves and get rich? Cory Doctorow’s novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (free download) takes place in a future in which there is no scarcity, and access to inevitably scarce goods (art, landmarks, etc.) is managed by a reputation economy.

I’m sure this question has been asked (and answered) before. Perhaps anyone with Economics 101 could answer it. Can anyone shed any light on the subject?

As planned spontaneously at WillPate.org, some Charlottetown webloggers will be getting together at 1PM Thursday, April 10th at the Formosa Tea House (map) on University Avenue in Charlottetown.

Nothing formal – no one in charge (definitely not me) – all welcome.

On the agenda:

• Sharing open WiFi in Charlottetown
• Small talk (weather, sports, etc.)
• Sarcastic quips

Update:
A good time was had by all. We had a nice casual lunch at Formosa. Weblogs represented were: Steven (me) from Acts of Volition, Will from WillPate.org, Heather from Six Ways to Sunday, Jevon from Jevon.Blogtrack, Jarrod from TextBased.com, Stephen from NewRecruit.org, Dan from CEOBlues.com, and Daniel (silverorange and unofficial spell-checker here at aov).

It was agreed that we would do it again sometime.

Like any internet celebrity, I’m plagued by email with From addresses like cindy5674@supereoffers.com offering Online Presciptions [sic] Filled!

However, today’s email from cindy5674 caught my attention. The subject line read: Valium, Xanax, Ambien, Soma, and much more ONLINE.

Valium and Xanax – ok, sure. I’ve never heard of Ambien. Whatever. But Soma?

A quick Google search reveals that Soma is the name of a real prescription drug. It is also called “CARISOPRODOL” and is used “as an adjunct to rest, physical therapy, and other measures for the relief of discomfort associated with acute, painful musculo-skeletal conditions” (source). File under: missed the point completely.

For those who haven’t read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World:

“Soma [?] is a pill that individuals take to basically relieve them of their cares and anxieties; if life gets too difficult, they take a soma holiday.” (source)

With the second-best domain name of any weblog I’ve ever seen (#1 being AngstyBlog.com), Dan James, my long time friend and co-worker steps into the brave world of weblogging with CEOBlues.com.

He’s off to a good start with one of the greatest business anecdotes ever told. Despite the date on the post, I can assure you that this story is absolutely true.

Acts of Volition has received a significant technical overhaul. Things should look pretty much the same as the changes are mostly related to acronyms:

• Moved from CFM to PHP
• Moved from HTML to XHTML/CSS
• updated RSS/XML
• Cleaner URLS
• Improved search and archives

Thanks to all who have helped with the updates, especially Mike G., who did much of the work.

Let me know if you have any problems with the new site. Expect further improvements in the weeks and months to come.

Posted here with the kind permission of band-member Jian Ghomeshi, is Moxy Früvous‘ Gulf War Song (3.6Mb MP3). The song was written in response to the first Gulf War in 1991. This does not imply any endorsement of this site by the band. Jian requested that I make it clear that this is not for commercial purposes.

As someone who’s 25th sweet summer is approaching, this song has always resonated with me:

What could we say…we’re only 25 years old?

With 25 sweet summers, and hot fires in the cold

This kind of life makes that violence unthinkable

We’d like to play hockey, have kids and grow old

Read the complete lyrics and download the song (3.6Mb MP3).

A recent trip led me to a few days spent mostly in airports, hotels, hotel, and restaurants. A few days into the trip, I was having breakfast in a hotel restaurant. From where I was sitting, I could see three or four televisions mounted on the ceiling in the various corners of the large lobby restaurant. All of the televisions were tuned to CNN’s 24-hour news channel, Headline News. That morning, the image of choice was an enormous plume of smoke from a barge that had exploded in the harbour in New York. The black cloud unfolded on multiple screens, filling my peripheral vision like an electronic Warhol.

These images and others like them unfolded on screens in airport terminals, restaurants (obviously I wasn’t enjoying high cuisine), and hotel lobbies. Everywhere I went, the TV “news” was streaming images of bombings, war, and disasters.

For anyone who’s seen Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, his most potent thread is not availability of weapons, or gun laws, but rather the culture of fear. There it was, the culture of fear – when it dawned on me: television news is a kind of electronic wallpaper.

While watching Frasier in the hotel room one right, a news ticker appeared at the bottom of the screen to inform us that a child had been abducted – that was it – a boy had been abducted. There were no other details. How can news that vague serve any purpose other than spreading fear?

That said, my American TV experience wasn’t entiredly negative. I discovered Ali G.

Several of my co-workers and I recently went on an IBM ThinkPad shopping spree and we decided it was time to go WiFi at our office.

We did some reading on the available protocols (I’ve worked up a helpful addition to this chart to the right). 802.11b is everywhere. 802.11a seems to be nowhere. 802.11g is faster and backwards compatible with 802.11b. G it is.

However, it turns out that the 802.11g specs are not finished and all products released as “802.11g” are based on draft specifications. What does this mean for you? Don’t buy 802.11g products yet. They don’t work yet.

We bought a Linksys Wireless-G Access Point. While they do clearly describe the product as “based on the Draft 802.11g Specification”, we naively assumed it would work. It doesn’t. Apparently it does work ok with Linksys’ own 802.11b spec client cards, but we all have different client cards.

Apparently we should have known better. We are obviously not the first people to run into this. The Register has article describing the situation. However, I thought some anecdotal evidence may be helpful: We bought a Linksys WAP54G Wireless-G Access Point and it did not work with our 802.11b cards (we’ve tried a variety of different cards: Cisco, Orinoco/Lucent, & Phoebe).

On the bright side, I’ve now got an 802.11b network at work and at home. This is one of those “Eureka” technologies – like when I first tried instant messaging. A recent trip to Ottawa showed about 20 networks in just a few blocks, about half of them open. For any local readers, look forward to more on open WiFi in Charlottetown (contact me if you are interested in participating).