tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8817171247555815363.post3942156964630597051..comments2024-03-26T05:57:44.937+00:00Comments on True Economics: 25/7/2013: Entrepreneurship in Ireland, 2012TrueEconomicshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07350536454228478974noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8817171247555815363.post-45836005233901721362013-07-25T15:10:55.266+01:002013-07-25T15:10:55.266+01:00I leave this link also to Chris Horn's preside...I leave this link also to Chris Horn's presidential speech to Engineers Ireland from 2010. It emphasizes too, I think, this relationship between bits and atoms, . . . . which places like MIT have been exploring for decades now, . . . and how it is the relationship between the two, is where all of the 'problem solving' and real business is done. In Ireland, we don't have a policy for 'bits and atoms', but what we do have are totally separated, isolated efforts for each, which don't merge into one another enough. In one decade we go beserk, crazy moving around atoms, . . and in the next decade we do the same with bits - but the 'value' is made, in getting both to work simultaneously. <br /><br />http://chrisjhorn.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/why-is-software-engineering-so-hard/Brian O' Hanlonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09185216066875647495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8817171247555815363.post-62629977498564207922013-07-25T15:03:01.472+01:002013-07-25T15:03:01.472+01:00Role of the recession - What I find is that the up...Role of the recession - What I find is that the upward part of economic cycle, from an individual's point of view, in Ireland is great at helping one to solve one's own 'short term' planning and get that bolted down really solidly. However, the recessionary, downward part of the Irish economic cycle, seems to be a lot better from an individuals point of view, at working out one's own medium and long term planning (because, my definition the recession forces one to look at 'big blocks' of time, like decade, two decade, . . . retirement age minus current age, equals 'X'). You tend not to do that, look at medium and long term in the upward part of the cycle, from an individual point of view, because by its nature the short term part of the problem (next year or two), is always much easier and more interesting to solve. <br /><br />We ought to get one idea very clear in our brains at the moment though, in Ireland. Because there is a lot of negativity often thrown at something like 'construction', and hot it became so central to Irish economic activity over a decade, from late 1990s to late 2000s. <br /><br />We should try to look at what construction actually is. It is the science of movement of materials on a larger scale basically (even more so than militarism in fact, and logistical and manufacturing sectors are logically subsets of construction too). Forget about building things and blah, blah. Construction is the science of the movement of materials. <br /><br />I reference Richard M. Stallman's lecture to Irish open source software community at Trinity college Dublin from early 2000s. MPEGs of the lecture can be found to download on Irish website somewhere, and also on YouTube. Stallman makes very clear in that lecture though, the distinction between movement of matter and movement of electrons, . . . and how the former is much more challenging than the later (the later therefore scales up by many orders of magnitude, and in turn software/electrons then finds is own complexity, . . but at a basic, low down level, software engineering is EASIER to do than movement and engineering of physical stuff). <br /><br />Which is the opposite to how most people think about it. They assume that physical materials are easy, and that it's the 'code' that is complex. But actually, its the other way around. <br /><br />The thing is, what we have in Ireland is an economy built around the movement of physical material - and unfortunately, all of the opportunities currently (Salesforce, Amazon, DropBox, Facebook, LinkedIn, cloud etc, . . go right down the list), . . . are on the opposite end of the spectrum. So what we have in Ireland, right now, is a boom in the the movement of electrons, within our economy - which perversely has occurred right at a time, at the tail end of when our economy and its people were all focused on the opposite end of the spectrum ! ! ! <br /><br />So, what we witness, naturally enough, in trends of population movement are trades guys moving out of the country (with the objective of finding some pieces of timber that need to get nailed together), at the very same time as 'jobs' in the science of movement of electrons, are flooding into the country - and a lot of the time, which can't find human resources to cater for those jobs! <br /><br />So we should really try to grasp this larger picture in our minds - and realize that what we are actually good at doing in Ireland, the construction part, is the more complex end of the spectrum. We need to find a way somehow to get to the other end - where as Richard Stallman informs us, the really simple stuff is happening. Brian O' Hanlonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09185216066875647495noreply@blogger.com