Kjarninn í bankakrísunni hérlendis er að greiðsluþrot bættist ofan á ofvogun á fjármálamarkaði, sem er mjög algengt vandamál þegar litlar þjóðir taka stór stökk. Það sem úr verður er lausafjárskreppa þar sem ekki eru til nægir gjaldeyrisforðar til að greiða fyrir það sem þarf að greiða fyrir erlendis frá.

Nokkrar leiðir eru til til þess að draga úr gjaldeyrisútstremi, en tvær helstu eru aukning á útflutningi annars vegar og aðhald hinsvegar. Aðhald birtist í nokkrum myndum, en eitt form aðhalds er að minnkra bruðl – það er að segja, hætta að kaupa dýru vöruna í stað sambærilegrar ódýrari vöru. Það er afar brýnt að Ísland sem heild hætti að borga erlendum fyrirtækjum fyrir það sem hægt er að fá ýmist hérlendis eða frítt.

Frjáls hugbúnaður er skilgreindur sem hugbúnaður þar sem leyfi höfundar er veitt til að nota hugbúnaðinn, læra af honum, deila honum með öðrum, og að bæta hann. Hugbúnaðarþörfum íslensks samfélags má mæta fullkomnlega með frjálsum hugbúnaði, sem kostar ekkert að flytja inn og er hægt að aðlaga alfarið að íslenskum þörfum, með þýðingum, staðfæringum og endurbótum svo fátt eitt sé nefnt.

Nú á dögunum ákvað Microsoft, einn helsti hugbúnaðarframleiðandi heims, að sala á hugbúnaði til Íslands skyldi miðast við að gengið á evrunni væri 120 krónur, en þessi afsláttur er töluverður. Í ljósi þessa göfuga útspils eins ríkasta fyrirtækis heims eru framleiðendur á frjálsum hugbúnaði tilbúnir til að veita öllum íslenskum aðilum, opinberum sem einkaaðilum, fyrirtækjum sem einstaklingum, ókeypis og frjálsan aðgang að sínum vörum til eilífðarnóns, eins og hann hefur gert nú í áratugi.

Í dag eru vörur þær sem framleiddar eru undir formerkjum stafræns frelsis ótrúlega mörg: Linux stýrikerfið, OpenOffice skrifstofupakkinn, Firefox vafrinn, Apache vefþjónninn, MySQL gagnagrunnurinn og svo framvegis. En frjálsi heimurinn framleiðir ekki bara hugbúnað, heldur líka menningarverðmæti svo sem Wikipedia alfræðiritið, sem er stærsta og ítarlegasta alfræðirit heims. Kvikmyndir, tónlist, og margt fleira er gefið út undir sambærilegum skilmálum við frjálsan hugbúnað, en undantekningarlaust er þar um að ræða vörur sem kosta ekki neitt.

Forsætisráðuneytið gaf fyrr á árinu út stefnu varðandi frjálsan hugbúnað, sem mætti hafa fengið mun meiri athygli. Það er tími til komið að einhver skoði þessa stefnu rækilega, og jafnvel íhugi hvort að hún sé ekki allt of mild í merkingu sinni. Punktarnir í stefnunni eru fimm:

1. Gæta skal þess að gefa frjálsum hugbúnaði sömu tækifæri og séreignarhugbúnaði þegar tekin er ákvörðun um kaup á nýjum búnaði og ávallt skal leitast við að gera sem hagstæðust kaup.

2. Leitast verði við að velja hugbúnað sem byggist á opnum stöðlum, hvort sem um staðlaðan búnað sé að ræða eða sérsmíðaðan. Opnir staðlar eru yfirleitt ráðandi í frjálsum hugbúnaði.

3. Stefnt verði að því að opinberir aðilar verði ekki of háðir einstökum hugbúnaðarframleiðendum og þjónustuaðilum. Notkun frjáls hugbúnaðar er liður í því.

4. Stefnt skal að því að hugbúnaður sem smíðaður er og fjármagnaður af opinberum aðilum, m.a. í rannsóknar- og þróunarverkefnum, verði endurnýtanlegur. Liður í því er að hugbúnaðurinn sé frjáls. Í upphafi slíkra verkefna skal gera áætlun um endurnýtingu hugbúnaðarins.

5. Stuðlað verði að því að nemendur í menntastofnunum landsins fái tækifæri til að kynnast og nota frjálsan hugbúnað til jafns við séreignarhugbúnað.

Þessi stefna er frábært skref í rétta átt, en þegar stefnan var samin var engin leið að vita að kostnaður vegna hugbúnaðarleyfa átti eftir að margfaldast sökum breytinga á efnahagsástandinu. Jafnvel með góðlátlegu framtaki Microsoft þá hafa hugbúnaðarútgjöld fyrirtækja og ríkisstofnanna aukist til muna vegna fjármálaóreiðunnar, til dæmis vegna gagnagrunnskerfa, fjársýslukerfa, vefþjóna, póstþjóna, margmiðlunarhugbúnaðar og fleira.

Við verðum því að gera nýja og harðari kröfu. Það er klárt mál að það er ósanngjarnt að fólk greiði fyrir vöru þegar sambærilega eða betri vöru má fá frítt. Enginn sem hefur þekkingu á frjálsum og lokuðum hugbúnaði neitar því að frjáls hugbúnaður er í nær öllum tilfellum betri en séreignarhugbúnaðurinn.

Krafan er því einföld: Vilji framleiðendur séreignarhugbúnaðar halda áfram þátttöku í íslenskum efnahag verða þeir að lækka verðið á sínum vörum niður í núll, ekki bara strax, heldur til frambúðar.

Ástæðan er sú að hugbúnaður er afritaður án jaðarkostnaðar; það kostar ekkert að dreifa hugbúnaði umfram þá föstu upphæð sem kostaði að framleiða hugbúnaðinn í upphafi. Hægt er að ná fram sömu innlendu tekjum af sölu þjónustu við hugbúnað og fást við sölu hugbúnaðarins, og viðskiptalíkön fyrirtækja sem átta sig á þessum mikilvæga greinarmun eru ekki í neinni hættu. Mörg íslensk fyrirtæki hafa áttað sig á þessu, og fyrirtæki eins og CCP gætu í rauninni gert hugbúnaðinn sinn frjálsan án þess að fórna neinu. Þeirra tekjur koma ekki frá sölu hugbúnaðarins – þvert á móti gefa þeir hann frítt – heldur af sölu áskriftar að þjónustunni sem hugbúnaðurinn er; fólk kaupir sig inn í heim þann sem CCP rekur, og þar liggja verðmætin. Ef hugbúnaðurinn væri frjáls eru allar líkur á því að áhugasamir spilarar myndu leggja sitt að mörkum við að bæta hugbúnaðinn, sem yrði til bóta bæði fyrir fyrirtækið og spilaranna.

Erlendis hafa mörg fyrirtæki áttað sig á þessu líka. Sun Microsystems hefur á undanförnum árum frelsað sinn hugbúnað og gefið hann frítt, vitandi það að þeirra helstu tekjulindir eru af sölu á þjónustu annars vegar og vélbúnaði hinsvegar.

Það er mikilvægt fyrir íslensku þjóðina að fyrirtæki sem framleiða hugbúnað hætti að selja vörur sem kostar þá ekkert að afrita. Geri þeir það ekki, þá túlkast það sem árás á sjálfstæði þjóðarinnar nú á krepputímum. Þeirra vörur eru ekki af því taginu að tekið verður af þeim: þegar hægt er að afrita eitthvað óendanlega oft án þess að kostnaður hljótist af er hreinlega ósiðlegt að útiloka einhvern, hvað þá rukka leigu af því.

Fyrstu mótmælin sem framleiðendur og seljendur séreignarhugbúnaðar munu leggja fram við þessu er að rekstrarkostnaður á frjálsum hugbúnaði sé meiri en af séreignarhugbúnaði. Við þessu á ég til tvö svör.

Fyrsta svarið er að þetta er haugalygi. Í dag borgar Íslenska ríkið tugi, ef ekki hundruði milljóna króna árlega til Microsoft í leigu eða afnotagjöld af stýrikerfinu þeirra einu og sér, og ofan á það bætast margar tugir milljóna til viðbótar vegna skrifstofupakkans þeirra. Skólar og stofnanir greiða þá jafnframt fyrir sérfræðihugbúnað þó svo að yfirleitt sé til hliðstæður frjáls hugbúnaður.

Annað svarið er að mikill meirihluti af þeim peningum sem fara í að greiða fyrir reksturinn af séreignarhugbúnaði fer rakleiðis úr landi, en með frjálsan hugbúnað er hægt að halda öllu fjármagninu innan íslenska hagkerfisins og eiga afgang. Öllum tölvukerfum fylgir töluverð umsýsla, hvort sem framleiðandinn sé fyrirtæki eða sjálfboðaliðar. Með því að nota frjálsan hugbúnað geta kerfisstjórar séð um alla umsýslu án þess að neinn hluti kostnaðarins sé greiddur til erlendra aðila.

Þetta er því tillagan: Hættum að greiða fyrir hugbúnað.

Yrði Ísland fyrsta landið til að stíga þetta skref? Þvert á móti. Brasilía fór þessa leið fyrir nokkrum árum, sem og Kína. Stór hluti stjórnsýslu Californíu er keyrður á frjálsum hugbúnaði, og fjölmörg önnur ríki og sveitarfélög hafa hætt að greiða fyrir sinn hugbúnað. Á norðurlöndum hefur Skolelinux verkefnið unnið til fjölmargra verðlauna fyrir sín jákvæðu áhrif innan menntastofnanna. Smám saman er fólk allsstaðar í heiminum að uppgötva kosti þess að nýta sér afrakstur samvinnu sjálfboðaliða um allan heim.

Í ofanálag við leyfisgjöldin hefur íslenska ríkið kostað þýðingu á Microsoft Windows, verkefni sem kostaði tugir milljóna. Ubuntu Linux dreifingin er nú 21% þýdd á íslensku, en þá er um að ræða þýðingu á öllum þeim þúsundum forrita sem fylgja kerfinu. Megnið af grunnkerfinu hefur þá verið þýtt, og þýðingarvinnan gengur mjög vel sem samvinnuverkefni fjölmargra einstaklinga.

Sömuleiðis greiðir menntamálaráðuneytið fyrir aðgang allra íslendinga að vefútgáfu Encyclopedia Britannica, en á sama tíma er frjálsa samvinnuverkefnið Wikipedia mun oftar heimsótt af íslendingum, og það kostar engan neitt að fá aðgang að því. Íslenskun Wikipedia gengur einnig rosalega vel, en í íslensku útgáfunni eru nú rúmlega 23000 greinar.

Annað sem er hugsanlega mikilvægara til lengri tíma litið er að leggja til að íslensk fyrirtæki sem fara í gjaldþrot af hverskyns ástæðum frelsi allan þann hugbúnað sem þeir hafa skrifað ef nokkur er, þannig að kóðinn glatist ekki vegna gjaldþrotsins og megi hugsanlega endurnýtast annarsstaðar í samfélaginu. Það er líklegt að íslenskt samfélag hafi orðið af hundruðum milljóna króna vegna hugbúnaðar sem hefur verið þróaður fyrir áhættufé og horfið svo inn í eilífðina vegna þess eins að fjármagn vantaði.

Þessari grein hafnaði Morgunblaðið á sínum tíma. Húrra fyrir fjölmiðlum.

After the police had teargassed the crowd outside the police station, an “anonymous benefactor” paid Haukur’s fine and he was let free into the cheering crowd, an instant hero. (I believe that the fine was actually not paid - that rather a angry phone call from above said: “Make this problem go away.”)

Today act two was played out as roughly one hundred protesters invaded the central bank in order to depose central bank manager, former foreign minister, former prime minister, former mayor and world class comedian Davíð Oddson, who was not present. Police were, however, and the protesters decided to sit down and keep them company by singing. Eventually protesters and police reached a deal whereby the protesters would withdraw iff the police did so first.

The climate in Iceland is very strange these days, but I’ll try to keep news of activist events flowing, mostly because it’s hillarious to see how powerless the powers that be are against the powers that should be: we.

So on with James’ comments:

I’ve been regularly checking for updates on your blog particularly since the financial crisis hit Iceland seemingly more mercilessly than anywhere else. I’ve been eager to hear your particular perspective on events that are unfolding in your country. I knew that Iceland would be exposed to the downturn in the markets because of its dependence on world trade to meet its most basic needs, but had never expected to witness the severity of the current crisis.

Let’s start at the beginning. No, let’s not. Let’s start at a point in history. Let’s say 1783.

In 1783 one of the largest geological events in recorded history occurred when Lakagígar errupted in what is known as Skaftáreldar. The volcanic plume rose up to the stratosphere which plunged the ash-covered country into darkness, killing crops and livestock and inducing a famine. The dark cloud spread far and wide, and some historians have even attempted to draw a causal relationship between Skaftáreldar and the beginnings of the French Revolution (1786-1799), although direct evidence for this is slim; however, it is a fact that Europe that year and in years following experienced unusually cold winters, leading to an interesting variety of drawings of people ice-skating on the Thames.

In 1783 it became clear that Iceland’s dependence on foreign imports was not indeed as great as was supposed. That year and in following years of course there was a strong need for imported goods, but prior to that the level of self-sufficiency had been largely ignored.

Fast-forward to 1808. After the destruction of Copenhagen by the British in 1807 and the following blockade on all Danish ships that lasted until 1809, there was very little in the way of ship traffic to Iceland. The entire year 1808 not a single ship arrived in Iceland from abroad, and resultingly no supplies arrived. In 1809 three ships made it to Iceland early on in the year, and famine was averted, but the level of dependency on imported goods, especially foodstuffs had increased significantly in the previous two decades.

In following decades the Icelandic Independence movement started to come to be, with a long lineage of patriotic poets in Copenhagen writing at length about the beauty of the homeland. By the 1880’s there was a substantial movement in Iceland for independence, similar in momentum to the current Faeroese and Greenish struggles, and in an act of placation Iceland was granted a constitution in 1874, which was renewed in 1918 at the end of World War I when Iceland got home rule. In 1944 after Denmark had been under German control for several years Iceland declared independence.

Here is where something strange happened. Iceland had been fighting for independence for upwards of a century, and when finally it became a reality, what happened? Did we have a social uprising like the French? No. Did we write a new constitution like the Americans? No. In fact, the issue passed without much debate and the constitution handed to Iceland by the Danes in 1818 was only changed slightly, in the exaggeratory words of one: “Striking out King and writing President in its place.”

The constitution was accepted temporarily for the term of one year. In 1945 it was accepted agai and it’s been left mostly untouched until this day.

In short: Iceland has become increasingly dependent on other countries through the years and decreasingly capable of making hard political choices. So what has the Icelandic government been doing since we gained independence?

After WWII Iceland received a lot of money through the Marshall Plan, which was smartly deposited and stored for a while. In the 1980’s the money was used to buy trawlers for the Icelandic fishing fleet, which greatly increased the value of the economy, pushing Iceland into inflation of around 80% in the mid-1980’s. The ’80’s were marked in Iceland by several things - the Reagan-Gorbachev meeting, quotas on currency trading that limited individuals quite severely and companies much less so, a housing loan system where the loans were eaten up by the inflation leaving home-owners happy but the banking sector distraught.

When I was newly born, in the middle of this turmoil that was the ’80’s, there was a general workers strike that had the government rationing out perishables such as milk to families. During this strike, I’ve heard, my father impersonated U.S. Air Force personnel to enter the air force base at Keflavík and smuggle powdered milk out for me. This is what I’ve heard.

You can imagine this kind of situation, it was fairly easy to enact positive change. So in the following years lots and lots of laws were passed, slowly pushing this fledging nation from an unstable nanny-state into a ultramodern capitalist economy. Regulations were relaxed, rules were dropped, and starting around the mid-1990’s under Davíð Oddsson’s governments, slowly every single government agency worth its salt started to be privatized, starting with the banks and the telephone company.

The banks were largely bought up by wealthy businessmen on the one hand and the families of those who sat in government on the other. More or less 80% of the wealth produced in the 90’s can be loosely traced to ten families that were very active in the original independence movement around the early 1800’s. That’s the way it is here. Small communities are very frequently controlled by minuscule cliques that have consolidated their power for centuries. No use crying over it really, there’s not much that can break that kind of spell. (I’m not saying this to be conspiratorial - that would not be useful. I’m saying this to point out the queerness of, say, the current minister of Justice being the son of the former prime minister, who happens to be the son of a former prime minister… point at another democratic nation where that’s happened.)

As you can imagine, it is hard to point at any one moment where everything started to build up to what’s playing out now. There’s no entry point, there’s nowhere where everything started slipping. Rather, the economy continued to boom as more and more was privatized and put into the hands of the same few hundred people, and the nation sat placated and enjoyed itself. Now free of import restrictions, everybody had two jeeps - not SUV’s, but proper four wheel drive six seater guzzlers on 36 inch tires. Everybody had a second home, and went on frequent trips to the Canary Islands. Everybody had loans atop of loans atop of loans. And with the exception of the last of those, by ‘everybody’ I don’t mean everybody. Most just barely get by.

So what caused the Icelandic financial crisis? Greed, corruption, all that jazz. But more importantly, it was the Little Country that Could, a kind of morbid Nietzcheesque miricle, and as is always the case with small economies that go to far too fast, over-leveraging was the ultimate downfall.

Was it any fault of Iceland’s, per se? Well yes, of course. It was the fault of the government for not taking preventive measures, it was the fault of the central bank, who’s chairman just happens to be the guy who made Iceland the way it is today, it was the fault of the vulture capitalists and the bastards who own everything. But much to the contrary of what can be heard from the various speakers at the protests that have been going on for eight weeks running, this is also the fault of everybody who stood idly by and didn’t question what was going on. For some, for the minimally educated people living in tiny villages working dead-end jobs and drinking their wits away every weekend - not be cause they can’t do better, because the culture they live in expects exactly that and naught else from them - I will grant them the benefit of the doubt. It doesn’t take a lot of economic theory to see why the CC-PP game sucks ass, but you actually do have to think about it. The rest… the people at the universities who think for a living, the number crunchers at the banks who had everything they needed to see this a decade away, they’re all just as guilty as the government. The government they elected.

There’s been a lot of pointing fingers and placing guilt during this entire thing; but that just isn’t the point. What we need is to figure out what we did wrong and how we can do it differently, and if you read the literature of the time when all this shit was beginning, you might find the answer. It’s there. It’s astoundingly blatantly obvious. Just look.

I find it interesting that the coverage of Iceland’s woes always fail to show that in April, Iceland’s markets, banks, and currency were faced by speculative attacks by foreign hedge funds after the unwinding of the subprime market in the U.S.
http://tinyurl.com/5ngv6m

The speculative attacks were quite grim indeed. There was talk as early as May, as far as I remember, of British vulture capitalists and stock breakers doing all sorts of dodgy short-selling and asset shifting that might not even have been strictly legal. The joke of tomorrow: Q: How do you bankrupt a country? A: Ask an Englishman.

The U.S. Subprime market was also a bit of a fuckup. It was an example of what happens when value dithers into infinitesimal degrees, to the point where nothing of the original value is actually encapsulated within the traded good. The fact that the U.S. Subprime market started this chain reactions will hopefully live in the minds of whichever group of dimwits gets the job of figuring out how the post-Bretton Woods system is going to work.

I personally think this economic crisis was engineered for a threefold purpose. a) to use it as a justification to push through trade negotiations via the WTO. b)to force relactriant BRIC nations to pull down their remaining “trade” barriers to the Western Nations so that as during the 1980s US and European multinationals will be able to buy the and resources of vulnerable nations at pennies on the pound , and c) to regulate the world’s banking system in the interests of a more consolidated industry and a cartel of nations rather than just the United States and Great Britain.

Quite. Remember, it’s not paranoid to think they’re out to get you. It’s only paranoid to think that they’re working together. And to think that they actually know what they’re doing is very naïve indeed. The fact is that the smartest people in the financial sector are just that: the smartest people in the financial sector. That’s not really saying a lot. They honestly don’t have much of a clue what’s going on, they’re just very adept at surfing the waves without getting wet.

I have my own thoughts on this. One is that certain elements within the Icelandic goverment and possibly the EU would like nothing more than for Iceland to become an EU member, because a country with the natural resources of Iceland signing them off to an aged troll of a continent like Europe with no real reciprocal advantage is the Bruxelleite’s wet dream. Weeks ago I sighed deeply when at the protests I saw people waving the EU flag as if it was a good idea. I sidled up to them and asked them if they suffered from a severe form of retardation. They claimed they didn’t. To my mind though it is criminally stupid to think that anybody’s interests are better served by moving more power to fewer people who are farther away and share less common interests.

So you can imagine my elation when today at the protests I saw a guy with a EU flag with a big cross over it, and nobody else with EU flags. I’m not sure if it was just too cold out for the EU people or whether there’s been some change of sentiment, but I’m hoping it’s both.

If your keeping abreast of international news you would know all of these things are being negotiated in various political and economic forums.

I get very little news of real global events I’m afraid, and our government is very good at keeping us in the dark. I’d appreciate any feeds you can provide me with to keep informed of the real issues.

I believe it to be engineered as the current crisis mirrors the last last economic crisis in the 1970-1980s almost perfectly save its unfolded so much faster.

The Council on Foreign Relations wrote a detailed economic and political analysis during the mid 1970s as part of their “1980s project” that aired the notion of introducing a global credit/currency system based on relations hyperregional currencies a la the US Dollar and a European currency and advocated the abolishment of national currencies through undermining national sovereignty through “controlled disintegration” of the world economy. Heres a telling excerpt here.

“In a tiered system the tasks for American statecraft will be great. What is being requested is that a form of collective leadership be developed in the management of the interanational economy to replace the individualistic leadership of the United States that has prevailed since World War II.”
-Edward L. Morse

“The obvious danger in such a regime resides in its potential instability. Some limited loosening is by no means unequivocally undesirable. It can be seen as a rational response to the earlier tendency, which was most manifest in the 1960s, for economic integration to run far ahead of both actual and desired political integration, thereby forcing countries into suboptimal policy choices. A degree of controlled disintegration in the world economy is a legitimate objective for the 1980s and may be the most realistic one for a moderate international economic order. A central normative problem for the international economic order in the years ahead is how to ensure that the dis-integration indeed occurs in a controlled way and does not rather spiral into damaging restrictionism.”

-Fred Hirsch and Michael Doyle

Yeah. The worrying thing about all of this is that there might be somebody somewhere with a very well plotted out plan. But I think it’s just a bunch of greedy beggars in smoky rooms trying to figure out how the fuck to keep people from figuring out that they’re just as lost as the rest of us. More on conspiracy theories later. Right now I’m going to get back to trying to find a way out of this mess.

Ah. 18 yes, 42 no.

Ögmundur Jónasson is pointing out how the IMF loan is the first step towards us joining South America, much of Africa, Poland, Russia, and so on, in being countries skullfucked by capitalism. He quotes Naomi Klein. This is why he voted yes. He knows what he’s talking about. Unfortunately there aren’t very many who do.

The Icelandic government has zero confidence amongst the majority of Icelanders, with 70% of Icelanders no longer supporting the gov’t according to recent polls. In this situation, the fact that two thirds of parliament vote against a zero-confidence motion shows that there is significant disparity between the people and their representatives. Representative democracy is no democracy. Democracy that occurs once every four years is no democracy. But yet the prime-minister said that it was, that “the nature of our voting system is […] we make decisions regarding the governance of the country once every four years, unless something comes up.”

Geir, I hate to break it to you, but something has come up. I think it’s time for you to cut to commercials.

I never thought much about the wording, but now I’ve realized it was oddly prophetic, and I have photographic evidence. Yes, that is the vice-chairman of the Independence Party (minister of education) with toast with the logo of the Independence Party, Iceland’s most right-wing ultra-capitalist party.

It was a silly joke we had at the office the other day. Frosti suggested that we make her some toast with the laser, and the mayor was going to give it to her. We churned out a few slices and made, we hope, a lasting impact.

Being silly is important, and the ability to be silly should not be taken for granted. A lot of people are feeling very unsettled these days, specially in Reykjavík where the spectre of bankruptcy and unemployment is overshadowing many or most happy thoughts. Being able to have a good laugh with one of the most stressed out people in the country over a piece of sliced bread kind of means that we’re all still human at the end of the day and we shouldn’t worry too much about imaginary organizational structures like the economy.

So take this as a suggestion: Go outside and be silly. Get a funny hat. Wear a pink track suit to work. Scuba gear to the cinema, your coat on backwards, or use a novelty oversized cucumber in place of a cellphone. We all deserve a good laugh. Let’s laugh at the economy, let’s laugh at being serious, let’s laugh at the situation our collective greed has landed us in, let’s laugh at capitalism and all the other stupid ideas that people hold on to.

Let’s laugh. Okay?

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in running the Fab Lab in Vestmannaeyjar, we’re making excellent progress and a lot of people are making amazing stuff. I’ll post photos and links soon. I was keynote speaker at the FSCONS conference in Göteborg in October and met lots of amazing people there. I’ve been teaching a course based on Cory Doctorow’s book Little Brother in Reykjavík which just ended with us making a mailing list called “Watching Back” (on Google groups). I’ve been attending the protests in Reykjavík, writing articles here and there in the media and being interviewed a bit, and generally just trying to move on.

In the months ahead I’ve got a full plate: Oekonux conference in England in March, Euromeeting in Belgium in April, FAB5 in India and Hacking at Random in the Netherlands in August, not to mention work, work, work, getting shit done, and trying to make the world a little bit better on the way.

Neglecting my blog is always a bad move. Perhaps I’m back in action now that I’ve managed to get a few things off my table. Lots of madnessout of the way, lots more coming up, hopefully I can be a bit more productive.

A thought did strike my mind though, during all of this.

A meatball is a generally mass of ground meat that is typically rolled meat comprised of rolled ground beef and other ingredients, such as bread or breadcrumbs, minced onion, various spices, and possibly eggs, cooked by frying, baking, steaming, or braising in sauce.

So far removed from more simple culinary tactics as grilled lamb or the like, we actually need:

• Meat, or something functionally similar (vegitarian meatballs exist, frequently consisting of pecan meal or cracker crumbs)
• A method of mincing the meat
• Eggs, or something that has a light adhesive structure
• Spices
• A method of frying them.

This gives us a bar: We need the ability to hunt (to gather meat and collect eggs), smelt/sinter metals (to make a heatable surface for frying), an understanding of spices, an understanding of animal anatomy, and - the key ingredient - the ability to make sharp knives with which to mince the meat.

Other options with meat would be Chinese style meatballs such as Lion’s heads or your run-of-the mill dim sum, or perhaps the English style faggots, which require less precise mincing and simply more adhesive (soy or meat fat). One could also go as far as to accept broiled meat in sacks such as haggis, but that would be pushing it.

Using a vegetarian recipe lowers the bar somewhat:

1 c. cracker crumbs
1/2 c. cottage cheese
1/2 c. ground nuts
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 onion, diced & sauteed
Sm. amt. garlic salt
1 can cream of mushroom soup thinned with 1 can water
Sm. amt. vegetable fat

(Cooks.com)

Crackers are essentially a sweet bread. Baking of bread dates back to the neolithic era, which is contemporary with development of elementary metalworking techniques in Europe, although in the Americas and Oceania societies did not develop metalworking despite achieving vaguely post-neolithic technology. So given the pan to fry it on, bread can also be a given.

Vegetable fat can be collected by pounding vegetables between stones. Given the technology of pottery, this can also be collected. Cream of mushroom soup is harder to acquire, but this is probably used in this recipe for its adhesive quality first and foremost, and therefore you can easily substitute for eggs (which are also included), which, to a neolithic person, is easier to acquire. I suggest adding more spices to compensate for the lack of the mushroom flavor though.

Cheese is difficult, although its origins predate known history - possibly cheese and bread were developed simultaneously, necessitating cheese sandwiches. I dream! But not all meatballs contain cheese. Albanian meatballs, Qofte të fërguara, contain feta cheese. You can also add milk (as the Finnish do) for a similar texture. It’s also fairly likely that the early cheeses were hard curd cheeses, somewhat like Parmesan or an old Edam in texture and flavor - fairly hard to use for baking without proper instruments for fine-grained carving of the cheese, which would also make mincing meat a possibility.

I think it’s safe to assume that, contrary to what G’Kar claimed, sentience is not the only prerequisite for having Swedish Meatballs (or Breen!)… neolithic-level technology and potentially metalworking will suffice, but that’s a whole host of technologies, none of which are given.

An obverse question here is: Can a civilization develop manned space flight without having invented meatballs?

Aš rašyti tai blog lietuviškai nes aš mokausi lietuviškai. Aš kalbu lietuviškai nelabai gerai, bet aš mokytis labai tvirtas.

Raminta ir Jack turi šaunu blog kaip kalba oro Lithuanian Out Loud … su tyrimas o mokytis aš ga kalbėti greitai.

Atsiprašau už man skurdo gramatijsai.

Ačiū o viso gero, Šmąri

(That is to say: Today I’m blogging in my fairly poor Lithuanian, which I’ve picked up over the last three days. For some reason I thought it might be a funny idea. My vocabulary sucks and my grammar isn’t anything to sing high praise of, but I think that’s more or less correct - most failures will be in incorrect declensions for nouns - I’ve got the case right, but I’m not entirely sure about all the different changes that are made; for example I’m not sure if kalba remains kalba in the genative case as I use it above, but afaik it does.)