Tangential, but at some point of the last 15 years I thought the music industry might move to distributing what amounts to dedicated MP3 players/USB sticks. The simplest ones would be squares with album covers (shrunk like CD covers have shrunk from vinyl), but artists could get 3D creative. You could wear your music in necklaces or in your belt. People would flock to these things as conspicuous consumption (as they already do with tshirts, pin-buttons, etc) which would offset piracy.

All of this is viable and cheaper than ever, but the culture has moved on.

This once existed as "Playbutton" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwoTlgyUYlE

edit: actually from the video description these are still released with new content in Japan

That already happened in 1999, but with the limited storage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitClips

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/37/db/da/37dbda2593cb4889feb05b3a8...

The cheapish mp3 players of that era had barely enough power to drive a pair of in-ear earphones. If you ised a pair of over-ear ones, you would get hardly any base at all.

I kind of hoped there could be a Miles Davis one shaped like a 3D head blowing a trumpet, for example.

Or that Weird Al would release ones shaped like (a cartoonish version of) himself with the headphone plug located between his butt cheeks.

"Tangential, but at some point of the last 15 years I thought the music industry might move to distributing what amounts to dedicated MP3 players/USB sticks"

There's something along those lines - MQS SD:

http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2016/12/13/mqs-sd-the-last-phys...

I can't even find a picture of one they were such a failure, but there was a time that what you're describing existed for AudioBooks.

For a ridiculous markup (I think they were like $80+) you could buy an iPod sized device that held a single audiobook. They were gimmicked up to look like a tiny plastic hardcover with basic nav buttons on the side.

Fun, albeit sad fact: In Norway, 99% (quite literally, not exaggerating) of bookstores are owned by the various publishing houses.

They've pushed an eBook standard where you buy a dedicated reader, then buy proprietary memory cards in sleeves much like the ones used for compact cassettes - the idea being that people want something tangible, even when buying eBooks. (The cynical among us assume they just invented that tangible bit to have people still come to tangible bookstores, but that is another story)

It has not turned out to be a massive success. Cough.

Now to a tangent on a tangent.

The advantages of the Scandinavian social-welfare systems are well-known. What are some (unrelated to the problem of funding welfare) economic problems faced by Norway? You just cited an interesting one.

I remember a story about milk import restrictions, but I could be very mistaken. But anyway, between the effects of oil exports on exchange rates (alternatively, the problems of exchange rate controls), the relatively small domestic market, the limits on land occupation further North, etc. -- the economy of Norway must be fascinating.

(Keep in mind while reading this that I am bordering on the libertarian - it may shine through here and there.)

Norwegian farming (including dairy/milk products) is tightly regulated and subsidized, basically a necessity if one is to farm here at all - after all, (slight exaggeration) mountains everywhere and winter half the year does not lend itself well to farming.

Result being that most all vegetables, meats and dairy products are purchased from farmers by cooperatives; the prices are set by the authorities as part of negotiations with the farmers' association annually. These cooperatives then sell the produce on to retailers and industry, ensuring a steady income to farmers.

This model wouldn't work if the same products could be freely imported from countries more suited (less mountains, less winter!) to farming - so we impose heavy tariffs on most products from abroad - with exemptions for produce from some of the least developed countries.

For instance, lamb is taxed at 429% on the goods value to make import prices comparable to the cost of producing it in Norway. Same goes for a number of dairy products - we have import quotas on, say, cheese - and if imports are too large in a given year, heavy tariffs are imposed to limit it.

The upside to this policy is that it is possible to make a living from farming even in the subarctic regions; it can be argued (IMHO, rightly so, even if it clashes with my libertarian credentials!) that farming is beneficial to local communities - unless the pastures are tended to, the part of the country which is not barren mountain would be covered in shrubs in no time at all.

The downside, obviously, being that food is much more expensive than it needs be; this issue is countered to a large extent by our petroleum-boosted economy, ensuring that even at the artificially inflated prices, food is comparatively cheap in Norway. Also, as the tariffs are not imposed only on basic foodstuffs, it ensures that specialities which already fetch a premium in global markets - think pata negra etc. - are outrageously expensive here.

In broader terms, one of our major challenges in the decades to come is that we've tended to solve - nah, make that postpone - any problem by throwing petrodollars at it; as oil production decreases, we've got some pretty tough choices ahead as income slows while expenses skyrocket.

For instance, we've relied on a pay-as-you-go pensions system; as people tend to live longer (and we've, to an extent (exaggeration again) kept unemployment numbers artificially low by providing disability benefits to the long-term unemployed), this is not sustainable (same situation as in a number of developed countries).

Now, pensions is to an extent cushioned by our close-to-a-trillion USD petroleum fund, but then there's all sorts of other obligations - say, tax-funded healthcare, (very) generous sick leave terms &c.

So - we'll need to axe our expenses, but in our very consensus-driven political system, no politician would dare step forward and actually DO something - after all, that would see his or hers chances of reelection plummet. You don't win elections by promising people that they will get less paid in retirement or when ill.

Oops. I just noticed that you said 'unrelated to the problem of funding welfare.' My bad.

A number of sectors face issues similar to that of the publishing industry - it is a small market, and with Norwegian hardly being a world language (All told, some 5 million native speakers), anything involving the Norwegian language sooner or later becomes an effort to prop it up - so publishing is not seen just as publishing; it is an effort to keep Norwegian alive and well. This has led to legislation which - believe it or not - makes it illegal to sell newly published books at a discount; this is to ensure that publishers get a decent return on translating and publishing books in Norwegian, but leads to such absurd situations like me wishing to buy the latest Jo Nesbo thriller as an eBook would cost me more than buying it on dead trees (as a 25% sales tax is imposed on eBooks, while paper books are exempt), but buying the same book on my Kindle or on paper via Amazon, translated into English, can be done at (typically) less than 20% of the over-the-counter Norwegian price.

Again, I can see where the advocates of such policies are coming from, but it does mean that we have a number of sectors of our economy which needs to be protected from the world at large through quotas and taxes. Now, obviously, everyone thinks their own sector is special and needs this kind of protection, whereas all others are just freeloading whiners who make everything more expensive than it needs to be for the rest of us.

Rant over. (I'll try to compose something a bit more articulate if some of the above piqued your interest. :)

Thanks for the rant!

Norway is usually held up as the singular exception of the Resources Curse of oil because of its long-term commitment to a Sovereign Fund. Interesting to see that this is true, but kind of exists within the boundaries of the welfare-state-in-an-aging-society system.

I guess (mind, guess) is that the reason we did prove somewhat of an exception is that we had established an efficient (as such things go...) state in which the electorate trusted PRIOR to hitting the hydrocarbon jackpot.

Also, it probably helped that we were a society with (relatively speaking) small differences and no real tradition for a pronounced upper class.

This, however, is just unfounded musings on my behalf.

Had similar thought ... could be niche thing for stocking stuffers and museum store nicknacks

Yeah except that would create massive amounts of electronics litter..

You can already buy single use phone chargers at convenience stores which, while ecologically horrifying, also speaks to how the economics of mass manufacturing work.

Then again, are single use phone chargers any more ecologically horrifying than non-rechargeable AA batteries or have they simply been around for much longer and have become mundane.

I recently saw those, I was shocked by both the price and the fact they were single use, surely a charging port and the extra circuitry would barely touch the BoM?

I've got a battery bank integrated into my wallet anyway, so I won't be caught out.

Actually, I took apart a similar device, a single-use e-cigarette battery, and it turns out to be identical to the rechargeable version, except on the tiny PCB inside the chip for handling the charging from USB was absent. The battery was the same Li-ion rechargeable, supplied charged up for ~1 days usage. The economics of these cheap electronics are insane...

And a new recycling waste stream.

Fair enough, as long as that would actually happen. I live in the downtown of a major city and on a weekend morning the amount of flyer/advertising garbage that is strewn across the sidewalks and streets as a result of the previous night's flyering is always depressing.

Even now with that all being paper, I'm sure most of it goes to the trash and not to recycling because of how ripped up and soiled it gets.

And Bitcoin doesn't?

Who said anything about Bitcoin?

"Massive amounts of electronic litter" and "amazing how technology has advanced" into a mad rush to waste resources and energy reminded me of this fire, and all the obsolete PC's and GPU's and ASIC's and coal power plants littering the landscape due to Bitcoin mining:

https://www.coindesk.com/gallery-fire-destroys-thai-bitcoin-...

https://qz.com/1055126/photos-china-has-one-of-worlds-larges...

Bitcoin mining consumes enormous amounts of electricity, which is why miners seek out locations that offer cheap energy. The Ordos mine was set up in 2014, making it China’s oldest large-scale bitcoin mining facility. Bitmain acquired it in 2015. It’s powered by electricity mostly from coal-fired power plants. Its daily electricity bill amounts to $39,000. Bitmain also operates other mines in China’s remote areas, like the mountainous Yunnan province in the south and the autonomous region of Xinjiang in the west.

http://fortune.com/2016/11/28/china-build-unnecessary-coal-p...

Coal is a killer in China. Coal burning and the secondary effects of sulfate and nitrate contribute to almost half of the dangerous air pollutants in China's polluted cities, compared to 20% from car emissions.

That (i) is absolutely irrelevant to the discussion at hand and (ii) a completely fallacious argument, since Bitcoin mining amounts to less than 0.01% of the world's energy consumption, providing a useful service in return (compare with gold mining, which is actual mindless busywork and consumes way more energy than Bitcoin does.

> less than 0.01% of the world's energy consumption

Actually, it's 0.08% and rising. The energy for 1 transaction could power almost 6 U.S. homes for a full day.

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

#Bitcoin enables Chinese entrepreneurs to export coal by burning it and using the energy to mine.

— Emin Gün Sirer (@el33th4xor) July 20, 2015

https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/mining/china/

Gold mining doesn't provide a useful service in return, huh? As will_brown pointed out, Bitcoin isn't a necessary ingredient in smartphones, electronics, jewelry, medicine, dentistry, aerospace, glassmaking, like gold is.

http://geology.com/minerals/gold/uses-of-gold.shtml

Forget about US homes: How many homes in underdeveloped countries could one Bitcoin transaction power?

Only about 5% of gold is used in industry. The rest is stored as bullion or used in jewellery.

You sound very confident with using strong words like "absolutely irrelevant" and "completely fallacious" and "actual mindless busywork" and definitive quantities like "less than 0.01%", when it turns out that your numbers are off by almost an order of magnitude base 10 or three orders of magnitude base 2. So they're only burning eight times more coal than you claim (and rising).

You're saying that because worldwide production of gold is so small and insignificant and practically useless compared to Bitcoin, and since only 5% is used for anything but bullion or jewelry, it doesn't matter and it's absolutely irrelevant to the discussion at hand that the smartphone and computer that you're using contains and depends on gold?

If not for gold, then how would you be communicating your strong confident words and impressive sounding but inaccurate numbers with us? Do you use bitcoin in your smartphone instead of gold?

Where did you get your "less than 0.01%" number and your gold-free smartphone? Is it made of clay?

I could do without the smug lecture, guy. Anyway:

From https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

>16.26 TWh/yr

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption

>109613 TWh/yr

Which yields 0.0148%. So you're right, not less than 0.01%, less than 0.015% instead. Still a far cry from 0.08$.

---

I would really like to know when have I said my smartphone was gold-free, how that is in any way relevant to the discussion anyway and not a completely inane pseudo-gotcha, I would like to know why you keep linking bitcoin mining to coal (another completely transparent appeal to emotion), I would like to know when have I said worldwide production of gold is insignificant... I would like to know all those things but from the tone of your confident lecture responding to points I didn't even make I conclude you're not really into discussing this. Intellectual dishonesty is more your thing, I presume.

---

And my point is that gold (of which, again, 95% is "useless" in the sense of not being destined to any practical application) costs on the order of ~1MWh per ounce to mine. At a yearly production of ~3000 metric tons that comes to 109TWh, almost an order of magnitude more than bitcoin.

As an aside: is there a list of the energy consumption of common Internet activity anywhere?

How much is used by a single DuckDuckGo / Bing / Google search? Or Reddit post? Or email?

I'll use that much energy by performing a google search for the answer, and then offset my carbon footprint by performing some extremely accurate mathematical calculations using ancient Babylonian clay tablets, instead of depending on gold:

https://www.google.nl/search?q=how+much+energy+is+used+by+go...

According to a 2009 post by Google: Together with other work performed before your search even starts (such as building the search index) this amounts to 0.0003 kWh of energy per search, or 1 kJ.

How much energy is required for one Google search? - Quora

https://www.quora.com/How-much-energy-is-required-for-one-Go...

Compared to:

https://www.google.nl/search?q=how+much+energy+does+an+ameri...

How much electricity does an American home use? In 2015, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,812 kilowatthours (kWh), an average of 901 kWh per month. Oct 18, 2016

How much electricity does an American home use? - FAQ - U.S. ... - EIA

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3

So if "Electricity consumed per [Bitcoin] transaction (KWh)" is 173.00 kwh, and one Google search consumes 0.0003 kwh, then you can perform 173.00 / 0.0003 = 576,666.67 google searches (over half a million) per Bitcoin transaction.

If a house used 10812 / 365 = 29.62 kwh per day, then you can perform 29.62 / 0.0003 = 98,733.33 Google searches with the energy it takes to power a house for a day, or power the house for (24 * 60 * 60) / ((10812.0 / 365) / 0.0003) = 0.875 seconds with one Google search, if these gold-free clay tablets are as accurate as news reports say they are.

Oh and I sent with a 3c txn fee!

As you type away your response on a smartphone or computer that contains gold (and other mined precious metals).

The gold used in industry amounts to only 5% of gold mined. The vast majority of gold is not mined for "practical" use.

You are missing the one reason this won't happen anytime soon. Battery tech.

Lithium-air battery would work. Additionally, you can use a sunlight-readable reflective display, which in principle only needs as much energy as an LCD, which is negligible.

...or imagine a display that includes a photovoltaic panel taking up most of the area of each pixel to power the device using ambient light, with a tiny electronically steerable LED that points in the direction of whoever is watching (and if multiple people are watching, just switch rapidly between them). The display would appear very bright but use so little energy that it could be powered by ambient light. In principle.

Bit like this https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/6lgg5m/received_a...

I imagine that we will eventually reach this point:

https://giphy.com/gifs/harry-potter-scream-newspaper-883Tl1M...

Fun to imagine that the Harry Potter Universe is really just a bunch of people that have inherited super advanced nano technology from some alien race that long ago arrived as refugees escaping some galactic war that devastated their planet.

After millennia they've lost touch with their history and only their access to their old technology remains. Technology that can only be accessed via a DNA marker.

This type of technology is able to bend space and time, hence the ability to jump through space.