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- Guild decline
- I am not saying that professions are dying. What is dying is their
guild power-as this power is increasingly replaced by the power of capitalists
or the state of both together to control the nature and quality of the
professional associations, the professional workplace, the professional
marketplace, and the relation of professional groups to the state. This
is happening slowly, so slowly that a group of professionals recently
interviewed by Derber, Schwartz, and Magrass, themselves citing Derber
1982, take for granted their inability to set goals, perhaps not recognising
that this was once a common privilege of professionals.
Elliot Krause Death Of The Guilds: Professions, States, And The Advance Of Capitalism, 1930 To The Present New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998, p. 283 - Ultima online
- Chaos and Order Guilds
Order Guilds operate under the direct sanction of Lord British, Chaos Guilds are sponsored by Blackthorn. A Guildmaster may declare his guild a Chaos or Order Guild if the Guildmaster is a Lord or Lady, i.e., if he or she has a Fame of the highest level.Once a guild is declared for Order or Chaos, all members of the guild with Fames of Lord or Lady status receive an Order or Chaos shield (these shields are extremely powerful defensive magic items). Those who have not attained this exalted Fame are cast out of the guild, nor can anyone of inferior Fame join an Order or Chaos guild.
More importantly, all Order Guilds are considered to be in an automatic and continual state of war with all Chaos Guilds, and vice versa
- Virtual union
- Workplace relations writer Michael Bachelard
21sep00
THE nation's first virtual union will offer online industrial services to subscribers for $80 per year.
The service, which is yet to be named, will be set up by a real-world association, the Association of Professional Scientists, Engineers and Managers of Australia, as a halfway house for professional workers who might not otherwise seek to join a union.
The venture into the cyberworld proves how far APESMA has moved away from the old-style model of registered organisations providing industrial services through cases in the Industrial Relations Commission.
'Growth Union Goes Online' The Australian - Internet patron saint
- UNLIKE the well-established rules for beatification and canonisation,
the allocation of patron saints to particular activities is somewhat
haphazard. Only in a handful of cases have patron saints been officially
denominated by the pope. St Clare of Assisi, who was said to have been
able to see and hear distant events, was declared patron saint of television
in 1958; and the Archangel Gabriel was made patron saint of telecommunications
in 1921. Thus saints who lived many centuries ago became associated
with rather more modern inventions.
The vast majority of patron saints, however, are linked to their various trades, activities or professions by nothing more than tradition derived from stories associated with their lives. In some cases, these traditions have been extended to embrace new technologies. Joseph of Cupertino, for example, who lived in the 17th century, became the patron saint of aviators and astronauts because he was said to have levitated during worship. Similarly, there are patron saints for photographers, motorcyclists and radiologists.
The rise of the Internet has produced a number of candidates to be its users’ patron saint. The Internet is a potent tool when it comes to spreading the word and stirring up support for a particular cause. But it is also a place where half-truths can quickly assume the status of fact—as in the case of St Isidore, who is the subject of much online rumour.
St Isidore was born in Seville in the sixth century, and compiled a 20-volume encyclopedia-like reference work, called “The Etymologies”, which covered a wide range of religious and secular topics. It was, say his supporters, an early example of a database of categorised (if unreliable) knowledge. That makes Isidore the ideal candidate for patron saint of the Internet.
Not everybody agrees. The followers of San Pedro Regalado, a 15th-century Spanish priest, believe that the Internet’s defining quality is its ability to annihilate distance, rather than its dubious usefulness as a reference work. San Pedro was said to have appeared in two places at once, and was also renowned as a navigator. This, say his fans, makes him a better choice. Also nominated is Santa Tecla, a Catalan religious figure said to be able to help those suffering from computer problems.
The Vatican has not yet pronounced on any of these candidates as the Internet’s patron saint, despite numerous reports claiming that St Isidore has been officially chosen. But, given that most patron saints have never been formally appointed either, St Isidore’s lack of official credentials does not necessarily matter. If enough Internet users adopt him as their patron saint, that will in effect constitute a tradition that needs no ruling from Rome.
Such an approach to choosing a patron saint would, moreover, be in keeping with the way things are done on the Internet, where protocols and standards are not imposed from the top down by a governing body, but left to arise spontaneously. Often, several competing solutions to a particular problem are proposed simultaneously. But if enough people support a particular standard (such as HTTP, the protocol that underlies the World Wide Web) it assumes official status.
So which would-be patron saint has the most support online? A quick poll using the AltaVista search engine to count web-page references to the candidates suggests that St Isidore has a clear lead, with 800 or so references—ten times as many as San Pedro or Santa Tecla. But will St Isidore’s appeal extend beyond the early adopters? Remember, Netscape’s browser once had an 80% market share, too.
- Future parade
- Cartoon with participants in labor day parade:
The league of temporary word processors
The take-out food scrapers union
The brotherhood of expresso bar workers
The celebrity handlers union
The plagiarists league
The junk mail workers union
The telemarketers protective association
The federation of television psychics
The international slave-labour coordinating council
The human resource fitters union
The amalgamated shrink wrappers union.
[Cartoon by Ben Katchor]
'The Post-Industrial Labor Day Parade' New York Times
