There is a new software technology. It has a bunch of boosters. There are some companies formed around the idea that they will make a lot of money by providing the technology. Then they go out and try to convince other people that they should use the technology – and by extension, pay them for it. If not them, then one of their competitors, but preferably them.

That’s marketing…

Last night Politico published an unprecedented leak of a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade, the decision that established a right of privacy and the consequent right to an abortion. The opinion of the court’s reactionary majority specifically includes reasoning to overturn the decisions about marriage equality, legal contraception, and general privacy of sexual behavior.

Assuming that the opinion is issued substantially as-is, I will make some predictions about 2023.

• ‘Red’ states will pass laws restricting basic civil rights.
• Corporations that rely on high-skill workers will not be able to hire them in those states.
• Those corporations will move out of the red states.
• The economies of red states are substantially worse off compared to blue states now. When the corporations move out, the tax base will be further reduced.
• When the Federal budget is roughly balanced, blue states subsidize red states. The Federal budget is running at a significant deficit in order to prop up the economy.
• Option 1: the attack on civil rights is enough to change Congress definitively to blue in November.
  • The Supreme Court will be expanded to 15 or 17 justices.
  • The Republican Party splinters.
• Option 2: Congress becomes red in November, or wishy-washy.
  • The United States tends towards a Christian Fascist state.

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The price for using a math library developed by Foobar Corporation is $10,000 plus 1% of the sale price of your product, or whatever you negotiate with them.

The price for using a GPL’d math library is that you must license your source code under the GPL as well.

The price for using an LGPL’d math library is distributing the source for the library along with your product. If you modify the library itself, then that falls back to the GPL.

In no case are you getting something for nothing. It’s just that the cost of using GPL’d software isn’t usually in dollars, but in contributions of more software.

Let us suppose, dear reader, that you are worried about small drone aircraft – copters, quad and hex and so forth - espying on your private activities. This is not as completely unreasonable a fear now as it was a few years ago. A realtime first-person-view drone can be as small as your hand and still manage 10 minutes of hovering and scooting about.

Let us also suppose that you are not the sort of maniac who is willing to shoot a deadly projectile at a rapidly moving small target in a populated area. If you are that sort of maniac, please move to an unpopulated area immediately, and put up big signs at your property border. “I am an armed idiot” might be suitable phrasing.

If you deride something as “politically correct”, best make sure it is in fact a case of political correctness, rather than simple politeness.

Making fun of someone for being polite points to a deficiency in the accuser.