Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

Step into the time machine.

I've got a bad feeling about this...

I remember when Internet Explorer (4?) was released and I was downloading it and trying to decide to switch from Netscape.  I had this unsettling feeling about MS, but IE was... faster.  And looked nicer.  I went with IE for a bit before switching to Firefox (way back in the day, when it was still called Phoenix).

Anyway, Google Buzz just came out.  I've played with it a bit but don't have anything useful to say about it's features or capabilities.  What interests me is that I am now starting to feel the same way about Google as I did about Microsoft.

It's hard to describe the feeling, but I think it has something to do with unease over having a single point of failure in one's digital life.  At this point, Google does my email, my office suite, my search, my financial portfolio, my blog, a decent portion of my online chat and my calendar.  If they went out of business tomorrow I'd have halfway decent backups of two out of my four gmail accounts, and about half of my Google calendars.  That's it.

It's starting to feel unlikely that Google will be consistently equal to the task of "don't be evil" while managing this degree of power and responsibility.  They are clearly more well-intentioned than Microsoft, but that just means they'll be even more powerful before they implode under the force of their own power.  MS imploded with just an OS and productivity suite monopoly.  If Google ever throws in the towel like MS has, they'll probably own far more than that. 

I don't know if there was ever a point where we could have saved ourselves from the fail that MS would become.  If there was, I feel like that moment when I ignored my feelings and switched to IE4 might have been it.

I'm not going to go Google-free just yet, but I have to admit that I'm getting worried.

Hi, Devin. 

If you're not a Manc...

So it would appear that Wayne Rooney has single-footedly made me a Manchester United fan.  I feel a bit dirty about that.

Speaking of dirty, Alicia Keys was good on Colbert's show and funny with Andy on SNL.  I fear however that the mere act of listening to her voice might expose one to enough sexy that it could constitute adultery.

The Next Next Generation

Dude from 2010: Hey, you know those hand-held computers that they use in TNG?
1980's TNG Fan: Yeah, what about them?
DF2: In 2010, you'll be able to buy one for a week's wages.
TNGF: Really?  Fuckin' sweet!
DF2: Not really.  Everyone will bitch because they don't multi-task.
TNGF: Wait, what?
Dude from 2040: You think that's bad, wait until you hear the bitching about the new flying car models.  The fusion reactors need to be replaced every 20 years, and you can't even do it yourself!  You have to have to tell it fly itself over to the shop!

What we have here, is a failure to governate.

So, Haiti's in crisis, which means that a bunch of folks are paying attention to the important question of the hour: "Why is Haiti so poor?"

A re-phrasing, I think, is in order.  Poor is the default.  It's what happens when nothing else happens.  Infants aren't born able to feed themselves, and nations aren't born with plumbing, roads, and a functional stock exchange.  The question that matters is: "Why isn't Haiti rich?"

There are a few primary things that a country needs to be wealthy:  Rule of law, property rights, and education.  Democracy isn't strictly necessary, but it can help by removing the tendency of government to infringe upon rule of law and property rights.

Haiti has had a series of kleptocratic, terrorising, corrupt, semi-US-backed regimes.  So there goes your rule of law and your property rights.  Elites speak French following the colonial tradition, but the masses (most of them descendants from slavery) speak creole.  Illiteracy is by far the norm.  There goes you education.

Those factors alone are enough to keep a country from being rich.  Deforestation?  Definitely a problem.  Setting a minimum wage in a country with rampant unemployment?  Lunacy.  Resource curse?  Check.  Overpopulation?  Not helping.  Indeed, but these are all secondary concerns.

If the masses can be secure in the faith that the physical capital they produce will be theirs, and if they can be enabled in any efforts to increase their human capital, the rest will work itself out.  If not, then... not.

Can this be brought to pass without foreign intervention to an extent that might only be described as neo-colonialism?  That's difficult to say.  Surely Obama and his paternalistic constituency will have their theory...  What's yours?

Gather the Council

It came to pass that the Christians believed a whole bunch of relatively contradictory things, so they held the Council of Nicaea, after which they still believed relatively contradictory things, but it the list of those things was smaller, and in writing.

I propose that we gather the fathers of the house of hax0r, for the discussion of these matters.

As a first topic, I propose: "filename: one word or two?"

And we shall call our gathering: c3.

Are you employed, sir?

Unintended consequences, nanny-statism, colliding regulations, signaling, sex,  this story has it all. 

You don't go out looking for a job dressed like that? On a weekday?