Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Prelude to the Road Warrior scenario

There's an interesting post over at boingboing entitled "How are you coping with collapse-anxiety?" We live in interesting times (like the old Chinese curse says) and it is an anxiety-ridden moment in history. How did we get here? Did the military-industrial complex spiral out of control, much too large for any one person, group, or country to manage? Or was it simply the bad policies of George Bush post-9/11, when he took an enormous amount of political momentum and used it to run the country into the ground, looting the treasury for his buddies on the way out the door?

Sorry if I sound cynical. Hopefully Mr. Obama can use his political momentum to take us in the other direction, but the critical mass of extremism in Washington looks to be a serious impediment to real progress.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Does Visual Studio rot the mind?

If you're not a programmer, stop reading now.

Everyone who's still with me, this article, while a little dated, is a fascinating read. The premise is how some tools dictate how you approach a problem (like the old adage "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"). Taken a step further, if you learn to think a certain way because you've been using a certain tool for a long time, it can change your way of thinking so that you can't see other ways of tackling the problem. And that's dangerous.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

State of the Union

"The New Hampshire state legislature took an unbelievably bold step Monday by introducing a resolution to declare certain actions by the federal government ... totally void and warning that certain future acts will be viewed as a 'breach of peace' with the states themselves that risks 'nullifying the Constitution.'" link (via digg).

As for the latest bailout: Let the Wall St. "Talent" Walk.